Trial By Ed
by The Arcticourt Spellwright
Summary: Everyone knew They weren't "normal"; They didn't know the half of it…They thought things were as they seemed; They were wrong…But the next Phase in their lives has begun. Now twelve kids and a board are in for a rude awakening…Canon-Compliant Superhero!AU
1. Prologue—What's Past is Ed

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy, nor do I lay claim to anything borrowed from Antonucci's works. Nor do I own any other works which I may borrow from, which I will list as they become apparent. (I do not list works from to which I may indirectly allude or from which I might have gained influences, nor will I list any source considered public domain.) Any scientific hypotheses presented directly or indirectly presented are not mine. I also do not own any specific real-world objects, entities, or persons, public or private, that I might reference in this work. I do not own the following: Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy; any works of William Shakespeare (which is public domain, by the way).  
>If you identify something that is copyrighted, please inform me so that I might amend my disclaimer to accommodate it.<em>

_This work is not copyrighted. I would be honored if anyone bothered to allude to this fanfiction in their work, though I would prefer if the person alluding to my works make their allusion known so that I might be prepared for any questions or comments I may encounter regarding that person's actions. Nevertheless, if one uses any significant part or aspect of my works verbatim, such as the plot or OC's, is in violation of the Terms of Service and/or Content Guidelines, or otherwise implicates me or my works in any sort of serious wrongdoing, I will do everything within my legal rights and power to get the story and/or him/her taken off this site.  
>Since I am very much like the ancient Greek writers in my views over the use of my work, I consider the borrowing of my works a compliment—do not make it otherwise by using it as an example or portraying it in a negative or derogatory light.<br>This fanfiction does contain some of my personal views, voices, hypotheses, and opinions. However, not all of these are mine, nor are they necessarily consistent with my own views, voices, hypotheses, or opinions. My portrayal of the government is not necessarily consistent with my own views. I do not mind the borrowing of my hypotheses, but please inform me. __**(Translation: Be nice.)**_

_I am NOT a lawyer and I have no intention on becoming one. I am human, and thus prone to making mistakes: I cannot guarantee my ability to maintain what is stated above. Therefore, if one identifies in any of my works something that violates the most recent disclaimer, please inform me concretely so that I might fix the problem. _

**Note for Readers: **I warn you, I can be very verbose, and in places this may be very thick reading or have abnormally complex sentence structures. If you have any issues comprehending my work and still wish to continue reading it, I advise you to use a dictionary and encourage you to expand your vocabulary. I will not "dumb down" my own writing, no matter how many times a _single_ person might review my work. (One or two confused readers are not my problem.) However, I would appreciate any reviews containing _constructive_ and _concrete_ suggestions on how to improve my writing, especially any reviews containing actual examples of how a specific sentence's structure might be made more clear or otherwise improved without losing its meaning. Despite my personal preferences, I welcome any reviews of my work, but I will never pester my readers for them.

**Author's Note **_(Now that all that annoying stuff is over…)_: Greetings, readers! I am the Arcticourt Spellwright, the authoress. I take the time now to apologize for boring those brave souls who bothered to read that mess above again with such tedium; I doubt I will ever do something like that again in this genre. It was as painful for me to write as it was for you to read.

Moving past that, while this is the second fanfic I have posted on (or anywhere, really), and is hardly the first fanfic I have written, it is the first one I have deemed good enough to post. I got sidetracked, I admit, by the concept of a Code Lyoko fantasy fic, but as I have hit a major writer's block, I thought I would post this, in hopes that by recreating the circumstances that led to my starting _Chronicles_, I might overcome my writer's block and rejuvenate my enthusiasm in the Code Lyoko show and story. (This, I assure you, is typical of my writing; my interests and focus tends to be cyclical; my aim should be back on Chronicles by November, but in the meantime I hope to finish this.)

Background: This story came to me after reading some EE&E superhero fanfiction; I thought I could do better. So, I started this during English 4 as a warm-up exercise while listening to the teacher's lecturing. I have a feeling that some of that writing energy has filtered into this story; it is by far the most concrete, realistic of my story attempts, (my forays into Lyokoan medieval fantasy aside,) and since it actually has a well-developed plot, I am hopeful I will complete it. As with Chronicles, I have developed extensive notes and backgrounds for each of the characters, all ideally consistent with (or at least not negated by) canon, with particular interest in filling in areas left untouched by the EE&E canon. (If you wish, I might even publish them. In a story format, of course. But, as it would take time to rewrite my graphs into a format acceptable to the Content Guidelines, I would much prefer to have the go-ahead from at least five reviewers.)

I hope you will bear with me through this story despite the potentially irregular and long spaces between updates, (and onto sequels if you so wish,) and hope that you like it. Kudos to those who get the references; there are a lot of them. Happy reading!

**Trial By Ed**

**Prologue: What's Past is Ed**

On the outskirts of a placid suburban neighborhood there is a large grey cinderblock building. Where exactly this is located is really not all that important—okay, it is, but the information remains classified. Anyways, inside that building there is a room, a dark and gloomy room without windows or doors.

Inside that room there is a desk. And at that desk there is a man sitting. He is barely visible in the darkness; the only part of him visible is his face, illuminated only by a cell phone as the man, hunched over the desk, squints down in a futile attempt to read some report by its light.

A small ray of light cuts through the darkness; the crack in the dark wall widens and closes. Quickly, the man puts the makeshift flashlight back into his pocket and sits upright. "Do you have it?"

"Yes, sir," the newcomer says.

"Good. Hand it over." The younger man hands over a small object to the desk-sitter. Then the older man said, "Here. Take this. Dispose of it. Don't break it; it's fragile. When you have disposed of it, return. I have something you need to do."

The younger man invisibly nodded and said, "Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

The assistant nodded, and bolted from the room.

There was a loud _WH__**U**__M__**P**__!_

And there was a _CR__**ASH**__!_

With tinkling.

The man still in the room sighed; his assistant had run into the wall again. He slipped a hand under the desk, and pressed a big red button. "Room service. Cleanup in the hallway outside room 15-0-5."

"Yes, sir," a cool female voice responded, and then cut off the line.

The not-quite middle-aged man then quickly fastened the delivery in its place. He flipped the device on, winced, and leaned back, smiling slightly, eyes closed. _Ahh…_

It was so good to have light again.

A few minutes later, the blustery, clumsy assistant scuttled back into the room. "You wanted something, sir?"

"Yes," he said, spreading the manila files out on the desk, and slapping his hand down on the topmost one. "I have received information from the observation team that the last of the test subjects is old enough to handle the next Phase. I believe it is about time to move on to Phase II of the Project." He paused for a moment. "Send a notice out to the Heads of the Departments: that it is time to remove the inhibitors."

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Vast, somber screens along one wall illuminate an otherwise dark room. Their bluish-green glow stains and paints the bleached white lab coats of those who venture too close to their plasma. In the dark, machines whirr, shoes scuffle and squeak on sterile laminate, and whispered voices echo in the dead silence.

Out of the green and grey gloom, a shaft of light appears, and fades away.

The intern blinks, his eyes adjusting to the gloom from the hospital-white brightness just outside. Self-consciously—he was not ordinarily supposed to be here—he pussyfoots across the floor to the tall, gangly figure standing before the screen.

Cool grey eyes looked down on the intern. "Yes?" he prompted, his calm, deep voice thoughtful.

The younger man jumped slightly, and then steadied himself. "We have received orders, Professor."

"Oh?" the expert mused, still only mildly interested. "From whom?"

"Orders directly from HQ…from the Director himself." The younger researcher paused, and then tentatively added, "He says we are to begin Phase II of the Experiment."

"It's about time," the professor rumbled smugly, like the satisfied purr of a cat straight from Cheshire, his piercing grey-blue eyes taking on a steely glint. "Tell Steinmann that it is all but done." He motioned with his hand towards the door. "Dismissed." The intern gratefully dashed to the door, glad to finally leave this room where he felt so out of his element.

The door shut with a click. The professor diverted his attention from the door to the screen. "Well, my boys, it looks like the lab-rats finally have some work to do."

A few muffled cheers rung out from the dark sides of the room.

A subordinate walked up to him and leaned on the rail. "_They_ have been ready for almost a _year_ now," she mentioned almost—_almost_—offhandedly; the slight accusatory tone was not missed on her superior.

The professor let it go; they had every right to be impatient. Hell, he was, too! But there were higher forces than he, or the subjects' durability, to consider… "Damn bureaucrats," he muttered loudly enough for her to hear, as if he thought it explained everything.

"Hm." The stern woman glared at him coldly; it was obvious that she didn't believe him. Then, knowing she had full well she had no say in this matter, she gave up and exhaled, throwing her full weight against the hard metal safety rail. "At least we got _some_ work to do now," she commented huffily. "Things were getting pretty damn dull around here…"

The professor chuckled slightly, bringing her glare back in full force; he ignored it with practiced ease as she slinked back into the shadows.

"_Indeed it was…"_

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Miles away, at a water distillation plant, a worker was about to refill the mechanism that adds certain concentrated minerals to the purified, chemical-tasting H2O when his supervisor stopped him. "Nah, Jack. Not that kind; put it in the back; the higher-ups want to try some new formula. For some study, I think…"

Jack cursed, and lowered the lift. "Alright, Bob. Where is the new one?"

Bob pointed. "Storage 5-A."

"Right. Thanks Bob."

"See-yah, Jack; I'm leaving early tonight. It's my anniversary and the wife will murder me if I'm late to dinner."

Jack snorted slightly, and waved him off. "If that's the case, then you don't want to keep her waiting. I'll finish up here and head home myself. Bye, Bob."

As the supervisor took off down the metal lattice, Jack drove the forklift over to the storage rooms, and dropped the block off in Storage A-1. Then he took off pell-mell for storeroom A-5 to see the new shipment.

Now, Jack had worked at plants like these for the past three decades; he had seen all kinds and shades of white and off-white mineral compounds come and go. Thus, he quickly picked up on that this new shipment was exactly the same as the last one… except for one particular thing… It lacked the old one's peculiar minute purplish sheen.

He smiled widely, amused; finally the higher-ups had bothered to read his complaint. "Hey!" the fifty-year-old shouted to no one, his voice echoing through the now empty plant, "This one's cleaner than the last one!"

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	2. Chapter I—An Ed in the Clouds

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter I: An Ed in the Clouds**

_Her world was made of clouds…_ That was the first thing Sarah thought when she opened her eyes. For indeed, her world seemed to have changed. Everything was…blurry. Fuzzy. None of the colors were where they should be…they weren't even there! It was just a swirling mass of black and white and grey and crème.

She lay there on her bed for several minutes, though to her they seemed an eternity, just staring at what might have been the ceiling and wondering what had happened. Where was she? Was she dead, or something?

At that thought, Sarah lifted her hand (_Okay, so I'm _not_ dead…_) and held it before her face. She blinked in surprise—it, too, was in this non-color scheme… it was clearer, less fuzzy, but it was lighter than most…_What the?_

She bolted upright, and, now thoroughly bewildered, looked around at her surroundings… That was when she noticed the fog she had been looking at was transparent…very much so. The more she focused at looking _beyond_ it, the clearer it seemed to be, and the more she could see…

Her room was still there, all right—though it had taken her a moment to reach this conclusion—but all the hues and shades and tints of her colorful room were messed up... And, worse yet, completely devoid of their once bright colors. It was whitish, again. Okay, a crème actually, but still…things that should have been light were dark, things that should have been dark were light. The walls were a grid of lights and darks of varying shades. Even on her bedsheets, the shade varied: the area where her head had rested on her pillow still retained the shape of her head; the area where she had been sleeping was lighter than the area at the foot of her bed.

That's when she saw it. Down _through_ her bedsheets, down _through_ her mattress, through _floors_ and drywall, _through_ pipes and heating ducts (she winced at the sight of these, they were so bright), she could see her _brother_ moving…

And then she realized that he didn't look like him. He was blurry, not very, but somewhat, and even his skin color was not _normal_…it varied…even inside it…_within_ his flesh. "This is just too weird."

She looked at the mirror above her dresser—did she look the same? Much to her surprise, however, the mirror was a deep, dark, very dark brown. She hopped out of bed and ran over to it. She put her hand onto it—had it been painted? No—it was her mirror, alright; it felt untouched by paint and cold to the touch. In fact, except for its appearance, it seemed like the same glassy surface it always had been.

She looked outside the window—which was a battle in itself; it was about the same dark brown as the mirror—and blinked. The sun (at least she could see _that_, blinding though it was) was rising in the sky—a sky that was almost completely black, except for the little whitish pinpoints sprinkled throughout.

It took Sarah a moment to compute what they were. _Stars in the __**daytime**__? _Sarah was no idiot; she knew that this shouldn't be possible…and yet, there they were. She gaped, amazed—she could see more stars in the sky than she had seen in all the other nights in her entire life combined!

She was so engrossed with the sight before her and above her that she did not notice the glass under her hand warming up…until with a jolt it turned bright white hot! Yelling out in pain, Sarah jerked her hand away from the glass and made a mad dash for the bathroom.

Sticking her hand under the faucet in a desperate attempt to cool her scorched hand, Sarah looked back at the window. It was fading quickly from a near-blinding light back to a medium grey-brown. She hissed suddenly, and stared as the aqueous gush of water evaporated as it made contact with her scorched hand. She whimpered, and quickly cut off the flow—this was not helping. Blowing on it in a desperate attempt to cool it, she ran down the stairs—surely the freezer would help! She didn't make it that far, though; on the base of the stairs the pain suddenly stopped, and, much to her shock, the burnt and burning hand suddenly faded back to match the light grey-brown of her other hand. She froze, and, mentally exhausted, collapsed on the first step. _What was happening to her?_

She sat there for several agonizing minutes, shell-shocked, staring at the hand that no longer felt like it had been stuck in the incinerator but as if it had been holding a mildly warm plate. Then, suddenly, life seemed to roar to life again. On a whim, she spat onto her hand… no clouds of steam welled up, and she irritably wiped the slime off on a sleeve of her nightgown. _Had it all been a dream?_ It seemed unlikely—the pain had been much too strong and vivid—but… Despite her skepticism, she pinched herself. Nothing happened. No bed, no sheets, no Dolly Poo-poo on her shelf.

Realization struck her. This was no dream. This was reality. Something strange, something definitely _not normal_, something extremely painful and potentially dangerous had just happened to her, she couldn't even see right—let alone think straight—and… she still had no idea what was going on. For one of the first times in her life, Sarah began to feel legitimately afraid. What the _hell_ was going on? Silently, she cursed her parents: why did they feel that they had to go to work extra early on _this _morning, of all days? She was all alone in the house…well, except for Ed, but he was…well…Ed… She froze in her thoughts. Where was that idiot, anyways? Surely he would have heard her screaming… Little did she like to admit it, she would have appreciated even him being around for company… She yelled out, "ED!"

Almost as soon as she had said it, there was a loud crash, and the front door fell off its hinges again, courtesy of big, yellow, and idiotic. The wind was knocked out of Sarah as her brother picked her up in one of his rib-crushing bear hugs. "Baby sister! The Meatball Men hadn't gotten you!" He stopped shaking her, and… "Oh. Baby sister, why are you blue?"

Maybe she could have lived without Ed for company. "Need…_air_…," she wheezed. With a grunt of realization, Ed dropped her, and she took the chance to catch her breath.

While gasping, she assessed her brother's appearance. He looked the same as he had the night before…except…he had twigs in his hair. And his shirt. And a truly lost-looking spider dropping from his left ear and making a desperate dash past the clods of dirt and lawn that he-who-imagines-monsters must have dragged in. _Had he been looking _outside_ for [her]?_ Well, that explained what took him so long.

"No, the Meatball Men didn't take me," Sarah stated, still too tired to point out to Ed that there were no such things as "Meatball Men". "Ed, something really weird just happened."

"Huh, baby sister?" Ed plopped down on the stairs right next to her. "Pray do tell?"

_Well, one of the good things about having a brother this out-of-touch with reality_, Sarah reflected, _is having a_ great _listener always around_. She took a deep breath and began. "Everything is in black and white and cream, Ed… and it's not like the old movies you watch….everything keeps going from black to white and the stuff that should be light is black or sometimes light, and I can see _through_ you! And walls!" Ed was staring at her, goggle-eyed, and she stopped him before he could interrupt. "Anyways, I got out of bed and ran over to the mirror. It looked…dark. Really dark." Was that a twinkling of knowing in her stupid brother's eyes? "Then I tried to look out the window, and it was first dark but I tried really hard and I could see the sun…and stars, I think. Ed, does the sky look weird to you?" Again, she cut him off before he could say anything; she wanted to get this all out. "Don't answer that yet. Anyways, I touched the window, and it started to burn my hand! Really, really badly. I yelled and tried to cool my hand under the faucet, but the water kept turning into steam when it touched my hand. So I came down here to stick it in the freezer, and…"

"Sarah."

"It stopped hurting all of a sudden and…"

"Sarah."

"Then you came in and…"

"Sarah."

Getting annoyed with Ed's interruptions, she stopped—finishing up her story really wasn't that important (though she would have liked to practice before telling Jimmy), she asked sharply, "_What_, Ed?"

He paused. "Um…" He hesitated. "Uh… I just had a thunk." Sarah stared, wide eyed, and gulped; the last time Ed had had one of _those_, the entire cul-de-sac had been mobbed by crows. "Uh…wait here." He dashed off down the stairs. He returned seconds later, carrying something indiscernible in the dark. "Just stay." He ran off into the kitchen, and came back holding something else.

"Is this dark?"

Sarah looked at it. "…Yes."

"Alright. Hold this." He shoved the _thing_, which was starting to look familiar to Sarah, into her hand. It was an ice-cube tray. She sighed; what was _this_ going to do?

"Okay, then…" Ed fumbled with the other thing, and shoved Sarah behind him and aimed the thing—whatever it was—into the living room. "Stand back…and…all-ee-oop!" The thing suddenly emitted a massive _fireball_ into their _living_ _room_. "Is that dark?"

Sarah sighed exasperatedly; the only thing that could cause that kind of inferno was Ed's Baron-o'-Beef Dip. Well that explained his little trip into the basement; she should have known. "No. It's brighter than the _sun_." Then she sniffed; the smell of propane or nitrogen or dirty sock or whatever it was that was _in_ that thing that made it's demon breath was now making her still-recovering (from Ed's bear-crushing hug) lungs and throat itch. "Ed," she observed, "you _know_ you aren't allowed to use that thing in the house." Out of habit, she added, "I'm telling Mom."

Cue Ed's usual panic. "No, baby sister! Don't tell Mom! I almost got it figured out!"

Considering that Ed usually _didn't_ think, Sarah felt that she shouldn't discourage this new development. "Fine. What are you getting at?"

Ed paused, and then stuck out his hand. "What color is this?"

"Lighter than the ice cubes, darker than the fireball."

Ed made a thinking "hm…" and ripped out a piece of drywall. Sarah would have yelled at him, but he seemed to really be on a roll; she'd yell at him later. "And this?"

"Lighter than the ice cubes, darker than your hand."

Ed stared at her for a moment; Sarah could feel the seconds ticking… _5…4…3…2…1… _Then the much taller boy practically exploded, lifting her up and shouting, "SARAH! You have INFRARED Vision!" Sarah rolled her eyes; typical that her brother would go for the impossible explanation. "My sister has _heat_ _vision_! Thisissocool! My little sister's a _SUPERHERO!_"

Sarah, getting fed up with being shaken in every which direction, hit him on the head. "ED! Shut up!" He dropped her like a hot coal, and gave her this kicked-puppy look that made Sarah feel slightly guilty. "I am not a superhero…I think… I don't know. At least, I haven't been—"

"Well you should be," her brother cut her off.

Sarah sighed. "Ed, I just want to know what just happened to my hand and why my world's suddenly cream and black and white…and how I can stop it."

Ed looked like she had just asked him something completely obvious (which, to him, it was). "Oh, that is easy. Just think really hard about not seeing in heat."

Sarah stared at him, and then gave a shrug. _Might as well…_ she stared at the floor, and thought really hard about seeing in color…and then, the world suddenly went from black and white and crème all over to the colorful world she had always known. She gaped at the floor, and then at her brother, who had this knowing look that really should not have been on his face. "Ed, how did you do that?"

The smugly knowing grin was replaced by the usual goofy grin. "I read comic books, Sarah," he quipped.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Good for you, Ed, but seriously, what's the reason?"

"I read comic books, Sarah," Ed repeated importantly.

"I know, Ed. What's the real reason?" Sarah could swear that a vein above her eye was pulsing.

This time, Ed huffed, and said very clearly into her face, "I. _READ_. COMIC BOOKS, Sarah."

Sarah glared; this was getting repetitive. "I know, Ed…" Then it hit her like a fifty-ton paperweight. "Wait. So you're saying, you know this _because_ you read comic books?"

Ed grinned proudly. "Yup! Thermos-Man Volume Thirty-Two! 'Part Five: Sparky versus the Giant Lobster-Griddle'."

Sarah quirked an eyebrow; she _really_ hadn't needed to know that. "_Right…_" then she stopped; she was going about this all wrong. If her idiotic brother's even more idiotic comic books _were _right about this, then what else were they right about? "So, do your comic books give any idea about what's going on with my hand?"

"Yes. Um…" Her brother had gained a faraway look. "We need to go see Double D." He tried to scoop her over his shoulder; she kicked him in the nose and got back onto the stairs. "Ow."

Sarah crossed her arms and thought for a moment. Sure, she could say no, but what would that gain her? At least Ed had some idea what was going on, and so would Double D, too, probably; he was smart. But first… "Alright, Ed. But first I'm calling Jimmy. And getting dressed. And so should you."

"Right on that, sister!" Before she could avert her eyes, he pulled off his pajamas…only for his jacket and day clothes to be on right underneath. "Forgot to take them off last night," he explained.

Sarah quirked an eyebrow. "_Right_…so… Well, _I'm_ not ready, and I'm also calling Jimmy."

"Nah, it's okay. Take your time; I need to go to the bathroom."

Sarah sighed—that was far too much information for her tastes—and hurried up the stairs to get ready for what was turning out to be a very strange day.

/–––/––/·/–·/–––/··–·/·/–··/

Around the same time that Sarah had woken up to a creamy world, water was building up in the pipelines of a certain trailer viewed by some to be the ninth circle of hell. In the bathroom of that trailer, in the trailer park just across the lane from where we last were, a corroded creak echoed off the tile walls, as a rusty rivet suddenly broke, caving under the pressure of the raging torrent that was welling up beneath it. The toilet, now free, was propelled upwards by a jet of highly pressurized water…up through the floor, up through a bed (awakening some very surprised Kankers), up through the ceiling, and up and out and over the cul-de-sac. Like a meteorite, it crashed through yet another ceiling and upper story, finally landing in Johnny's living room.

Johnny had been watching early morning cartoons when it crashed right between him and the TV. Cheerfully, the bald kid commented "Are we lucky or what? The toilet's broken, and a new one falls out of the sky! Suddenly his attention turns to the board at his side. "What's that, Plank?"

The aptly named board didn't appear to say anything out loud, but Johnny got something out of it. "You think it's the Kankers' toilet? What makes you think that, buddy?" A pause. "Oh yeah… Well, I guess something good did come out of the time they kidnapped you and used you as a backscratcher! Good thing you remembered! What do you say we go and hide over in Rolf's storm cellar?" Walking out the door, he cackled, "Boy, Plank, you sure are right! Nothing ever gets dull around here!" Another pause. "Don't worry, Plank; Rolf's a nice enough guy—Oh. _That_. Don't sweat it; I won't let Victor eat you."

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Meanwhile, back at the Kankers' trailer, the notorious residents looked up at their new 'skylight' and the geyser still flowing fifty feet up straight in the air, and wondered what the _heck_ had caused _this_.

Then Lee Kanker said those dreaded words of doom. "Well, girls, it looks like we're going _hunting_."

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To be continued…


	3. Chapter II—An Ed in the Fold

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter II: An Ed in the Fold**

_The son of a shepherd awoke, as usual, before the sun had risen above the horizon; at this time of year, the chickens laid best if they were fed before the sun had risen, so he had to get an even earlier start than usual. Thus, Rolf got up, and dressed for the day. As usual, Rolf dressed in his usual garb, scowling slightly at the uncomfortable rubbing of his shirt against his back hair. But then he realized something felt…off. Any sleepiness that may have lingered evaporated as he looked behind him and saw…_

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Jimmy met Sarah and Ed on the way to Double D's house; after Sarah had explained to him what was going on over the phone, he had insisted on coming to support his friend. "You can always count on me, girlfriend," he had chirped pertly.

Ed chattered excitedly the whole way there. "Oh boy, oh boy! I wonder if I have powers too! Ooh, ooh, heat vision! That would be so cool! Or solar rays! Or maybe I could be a Badass Normal and fight crime with my trusty sidekick Baron 'o Beef Dip." He looked particularly excited at that last one as they walked up to the front door of 217 Rathink Ave.

"You probably could, Ed," Sarah said exasperatedly. Oddly enough, she thought that this was probably true. Now, Sarah was no expert on explosives, but what with her family's strange, single-minded fascination with high-tech weaponry and the bizarre, she knew more than enough to see that _what_ever was in Baron o' Beef Dip had got to be high military-grade.

That means, fatal. She still couldn't believe that someone would be dumb enough to give something like _that_ to her delusional brother.

Double D's house was unusually quiet for this time of morning—almost eerily so. Usually, the place would be ringing and whirring and humming with bustling activity as the youngest resident performed whatever various chores had been allotted to him. But this morning, only the faint hum of the washing machine was to be heard.

Jimmy pressed the doorbell. A few moments later, Double D emerged, opening the door with a upbeat "Good morning." Then, he realized that it was not Eddy who was accompanying his oafish friend, but… "Sarah and Jimmy? What are you doing here?"

"We need to ask you something," Sarah said bluntly.

"Oh. In that case, come in," the sock-wearer said, ushering them in.

As usual, Jimmy, always one for the clean and fresh-smelling well-kept household, admired Edd's handiwork. Nothing seemed out of place in this house!

But Ed obviously differed from that assessment. "Where are all the sticky notes, Double D?"

Double D shrugged. "My parents were called out of the house early this morning for an emergency meeting; it was completely unplanned, so they didn't have time to set out for me my usual load of tasks. As such, I took it upon myself to continue the house's proper upkeep based on my own judgment…Oh, no Jimmy, this way," he said, directing them away from the kitchen and up the stairs. "Just mopped the tile; Mother always has such a fine eye for scuff marks."

"That's weird," Sarah thought aloud. "Ours had to leave early too."

"Same here," Jimmy agreed as they entered Double D's green room.

"Yes, well…" Double D hesitated, and then said, "What is it that you wanted to ask me?"

"Sarah's got superpowers, Double D! She can see in infrared and stuff," Ed summarized concisely.

Double D looked skeptical. "…Sarah, would you mind giving me a more concrete answer?"

"That's why we are here. I have no clue!" At this, Double D looked…puzzled.

"Why don't you start at the beginning? Oh, and Jimmy, you might want to sit down; I have a feeling that this is going to be a while…" As Jimmy joined Sarah sitting on Double D's bed, and Ed was looking through Double D's bookshelf, Double D himself plopped down on his wooden desk chair, started a tape recorder, and pulled out a clipboard and pen, ready to take notes. Sarah took a deep breath, and began…

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Johnny crossed Rolf's yard to the storm shelter the Clan had built. He dodged a chicken that was freaking out and knocked on the door when he heard footsteps inside; since all of Rolf's family were out working besides him, there was only one person who could be in there… "Hiya, Rolf! Can I stay down…" Just as he had started to open the door, a blur of blue pulled it shut again.

"Ah-hargh! Don't come in, Johnny-the-wood-boy! No, this is not a good time! Go away!"

Johnny blinked, and tipped his ear towards Plank. "Yeah, you're right, buddy; Rolf _doesn't_ sound all right…" So, Johnny being Johnny, he knocked on the door again. "You feeling okay, Rolf?" He was met with the sound of wailing, and the strain on the door went slack. Johnny lifted the door up. He goggled at the sight before him, let the door slip shut for a moment, then mustered up every ounce of courage he had left (well, almost—had he mustered up any more he might have just been willing to face the Kankers in their rampaging) and marched right in. "Rolf…Is that you?"

The form crouching in the back corner of the room turned to face him. A long snout, pointed ears, a semi-lupine form… "Yes, it is I, Rolf thinks," the normally blue-haired kid sighed dejectedly.

Johnny thought for a moment, then laughed. "Wow, Rolf! You really had me going there! Nice wolf suit!"

"It is no suit; it is Rolf's family curse, Rolf is sure…"

Johnny cocked his head. "Your family's werewolves?"

"Every seventh son of the seventh son! I did not think that it would be I, as Rolf's father only had three brothers." The azure wolf-thing turned back into the corner, as despondent as he ever had been. _Poor Rolf seems so sad_, Johnny thought.

"So it can't be that, huh Rolf?" Johnny reasoned optimistically. A long claw twitched, and after a moment, a paw fell away from his ear. "I dunno what it is, but it's cool! And you're still Rolf. So what's the problem?"

"Are you so simple, Melon-for-a-Head Wood-boy? Now Rolf is a traitor in all but name… and when Rolf's relatives come home, they will all think Rolf is in league with the Wolf!" At Rolf's vehement outburst, Johnny had stepped back. Now, seeing this, Rolf sighed. "You can leave but Rolf cannot; Rolf must stay down here but he cannot stay… Rolf has dishonored his family…"

Johnny stared. "You can stay at my house if you need to. Maybe there's something we can do." Then, hearing the sounds of chickens cawing, Johnny remembered the reason he came here. "Um…Rolf, can we hide here? The Kankers are on a rampage looking for their toilet."

Rolf howled in distress, and said, "Yes, Johnny Wood-Boy, you can stay here, but first assist Rolf in saving his livestock!"

As Rolf bounded up the stairs, Johnny hid Plank behind the furnace. "You'll be safe if you stay here, buddy," he whispered, and followed the wolf-boy up into the morning sky already developing sinister swirling clouds and an eerily dark hue…

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The three sisters of the trailer park left their haunt after the younger two redirected the flow into the creek and the eldest plugged the hole of the formerly-gushing geyser with dirt.

"It went this way, guys," May said, and Lee and Marie, with no evidence to contradict this, nodded in agreement.

"May as well."

"As good as any."

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"And that's what happened?" Double D asked, still skeptical.

"As well as I can remember," Sarah confirmed. For once, Double D looked completely baffled.

"This is truly uncanny," the resident brainiac ventured carefully after a moment. "But I think that…Ed is _right_."

Ed looked positively giddy. "Can you be our butler, Double D?"

Cue a shared confused glance between the other three. "Ed, what the…?"

As Sarah said that, something occurred to Edd. "_Oh_. The sunburn…"

"_What_?"

"Jimmy, do you remember the time at the swimming hole when we stalked Kevin for his spot from on top of the rock?" Jimmy looked lost, but Sarah seemed to have caught on.

"It's the time that you were over at my place for dinner and Ed walked in all sunburned, proclaimed himself 'Lizardman' or something, announced that he was going to fight crime, and…" She trailed off, snickering.

Jimmy cracked into giggles as the incident dawned on him. "Oh. I remember. So _that's_ what happened," he said in between bursts, and both he and Sarah collapsed into dual fits of laugher.

Edd smiled fondly at the two younger kids; they were actually pretty nice when they weren't trying to kill Ed, Eddy, and himself. Speaking of… "No, Ed; I am certain that I could be more useful as your technology supplier than I would be your butler." He looked over…and realized that Ed was no longer inspecting the skulls he had collected on his bookshelf. Where was he? He quickly glanced around and found the green-jacketed kid inspecting his cactus. Was he about to _touch_ it? _Best preempt any more interruptions…_ "—Please don't touch Jim, Ed; I just cleaned his needles…"

Ed looked up, surprised, and accidentally pricked his finger on a needle. "Oh, uh…" Trying to hide his fallacy, he stuck his finger in his mouth. Double D rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," he said, looking over at Sarah and Jimmy, who were composing themselves. (Honestly, he was glad that Sarah had been unable to vocalize whatever Ed did if it led to _that_ level of lack of self-composure…) "As I was saying, Ed is correct in that you were seeing in infrared vision; he was also right in coming to me rather than experimenting further." Ed beamed at the praise, but Sarah and Jimmy, sensing a 'but' in the sentence, looked concerned. "I do not know what caused your…incident, Sarah, but I think it is safe to infer that your hands were the source of it, rather than the damaged party—at least at first. I would like to do some testing…"

"NO!" Jimmy exploded, and the others stared at the quiet artist, surprised at the outburst. But Jimmy was not done. "Sarah, please, don't do this—it's like in the movies. They'll examine you but then they'll take you to a secret location and dissect you and…" Jimmy continued pleading, holding Sarah's hands and begging, and Sarah looked troubled.

"Jimmy, please!" Edd objected. "I will be doing no such thing!" He sighed. "You _know_ me. I am astounded that you think so lowly of me!" While Jimmy looked abashed by the reprimand, Edd muttered, "I agree with you on one thing, Jimmy. Caution must be taken on who is informed."

Ed nodded. "Caution saved the Man in the Cape and Cowl, Sarah. A pigeon once unhidden can never be unrevealed," he waxed pseudo-sagely.

Sarah thought it over. "…What are you thinking about doing?" she inquired at last.

"As I was saying, I think we should do a few simple tests to gauge the extent of your…ability…and figure out exactly what it does. There could be more to it than meets the eye."

"I want it turned off." Sarah's blunt statement carried an air of finality in its flat tone.

Double D looked worried. "I don't think I can do that…I don't know if it is even possible… or if it would do more harm than good. Let's see if you can live with it…"

Jimmy held up his hand. "Wait a minute, Double D. I want to make sure we have on paper exactly _what_ we will be testing, and how."

Edd was getting annoyed with Jimmy's constant pestering. "_Fine, _Jimmy. And how about on top of that, I make photocopies of the lab write-ups that I do for all my experiments? I will give them to you and Sarah, so that you will know _exactly_ the procedures and methods I will be using. Does that sound acceptable?" he snapped.

Jimmy looked smugly satisfied, and was about to chirp a curt affirmative when the ground suddenly shook violently underneath them.

"Good lord!" Double D gasped, gripping the back of his desk chair for dear life; the wheeled seat was rolling around the room with every toss and turn. The resident of the room only just barely managed to catch his ant farm before it could break and spill out all 14083 black, potentially harmful insects out into his house proper—and even then, he nearly dropped it when his chair slammed against the wall.

Sarah had jumped under the bed and had plastered herself to the rails on the underside. Jimmy had attempted the same…but had been ripped off by the runaway desk chair on a speeding rampage before being deposited somewhere near the desk.

Ed was the only one enjoying himself. He was bouncing along, riding every seismic wave, completely oblivious to the chaos and distress of those around him (and the cactus that had attached itself to his back).

Thus, when the minute-long quake subsided, the characters found themselves strewn around the room in every way, shape, and form. Hesitantly, all four children looked about the room. Those who were not normal visitors to this room were both amazed and relieved that the small library of books had not fallen out of their shelves—considering the size of some of the tomes, a hit from the thickest probably would have been fatal. Double D and Ed, on the other hand, knew that there was no worry about falling books—they were packed so tightly in their shelves that it would take far more than an earthquake to get them to fall out.

"Phwew. Glad that's over," Jimmy said.

"Was that a _quake_?" Sarah asked incredulously, pulling herself out from under the bed.

"It appears so," Double D said hesitantly, shakily replacing his ant farm back in its designated spot and straightening the neighboring lampshade.

"Wasn't me," Ed provided.

_Thunk._

All four of them followed the loud sound to the potted cactus that had just dropped off of Ed's back. Ed seemed to be the most surprised. "Ed…was Jim stuck to your _back_?" Double D asked, aghast.

"Huh." Ed shuffled around to investigate the cactus, revealing to Double D and Jimmy (who gasped and looked away, afraid of seeing blood) the full extent of the prickly plant's damage.

There was none. Aside from the multiple tears in Ed's shirt and jacket, there was no real injury. All the punctures ripped into the fabric revealed was freshly-healed, thick, yellowish skin (much to Jimmy's (who had had to look) relief).

Edd's look went from incredibly concerned to an almost world-weary deadpan, and he dropped the medical alcohol and bag of cotton balls he had retrieved from his emergency pocket first-aid kit back into the plastic container. "Your healing rate never ceases to amaze me, Ed," Edd commented mildly, replacing his kit in his pocket.

"Do you think that's my superpower, Double D?"

"Let's hope that if it is, it's not with many weaknesses, Ed." While Sarah joined Jimmy at the window, he went over and replaced Jim back in its place.

"YAAAAAAH!" "AWOOO-OOO-OOO!"

At the sounds of screaming, all four of them turned to face the window. Confused at the commotion, Edd made a quick decision. "Perhaps we should go see how our neighbors are faring."

Nodding, but frightened all around, the four children went outside to investigate.

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"Nice earthquake, Lee…How did you make it?"

"Meh, I don't really know. I just went like this," Lee stomped the ground with her foot, producing a much milder shockwave that only caused Johnny's lot and parts of Rolf's and Nazz's, to tremble. "And…"

"And…yeah," Marie agreed, stomping her foot, biting her tongue and furrowing her brows in concentration, attempting to mimic the feat. She only succeeded in stubbing her toe. Hissing, she stated, "Hey! It's not working…" She focused even more, now stabbing at the ground repeatedly with her foot.

"HEY GUYS!" their sister called out from inside the house, cutting off whatever retort Lee was about to come up with. "LOOK WHAT I FOUND!"

Lee sighed. "_What_, May?"

The blonde Kanker ran up, carrying with her a certain fateful porcelain bowl. "I found our **toilet**!"

"Good job, May."

"Great. Now we can get out of here. This is that weird kid's house—I don't want to be here when he gets back."

"Alright. Let's visit my boyfriend on the way back."

"Why _your_ boyfriend, Lee? Mine's house is more direct!"

"Because I say so!" Marie grumbled and ignored her sisters as they trudged back to their lair with the toilet in tow, irritated that _her_ favorite Ed's house was so far off course that she didn't have an excuse to go bug him.

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	4. Chapter III—If Hitler Invaded Ed…

_**Disclaimer: **__See Prologue_

**Notes for Reviewers:  
><strong>_**To all: **_I greatly thank all who have reviewed for their input. Yes, I do read them, and I do take notes on them for later chapters, though the results of your contributions will not be seen for several more chapters, as I have the next… six? Maybe seven… already lined up. Just proofreading!

_**Omegadelta:**_ As my first (and second—was this your first anonymous review, by the way? I noticed you double posted. No matter; we all make mistakes.: )) reviewer on this fic, I extend an extra round of thanks. I believe that Chapter Two should have made your answer somewhat clearer.

_**Skamikaze:**_ Thank you for reviewing this fic, too, and thank you for your favorable views on my verbosity. Neither story will go to the scrap heap—these two feed each other in an odd way.

_**Randompandattack:**_ Again, I would try to take your advice…if I hadn't already written the next half dozen chapters. Think you can sit through it? Believe me, there's a reason the plot seems to be going so slow—there's a lot of stuff here hiding in the details… I don't really believe that is an excuse, but I do hope it will make the next few chapters a little more interesting. I am glad to hear your affirmation of the characterizations. If you ever see any out of character moments, please inform me.

_**Helena:**_ 1) Thank you for your praise. 2) I like any questions asked of me—of course I'll let you! Never be sorry for asking questions—they make the world interesting and keep our political leaders cautious! XP My time is never wasted when answering questions, as it helps me think about where I am going in my writing, and helps me avoid plotholes. So, your answer:

3) I am not exactly certain what you are referring to when you say 'that history was based on something else?'. If you are talking about our own world's history, then I do admit that I don't completely trust our knowledge of our past, in any area, to be accurate. There always seems to be something happening behind the scenes. If you are talking about the Universe of _Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy_ and its relation to our own, and how it relates to this fic, then… well, it's a little more complicated. You see, the universe of EE&E is supposedly kept vague to make it more relatable to a larger audience—the location of Peach Creek is never given, the show does not have a set timeline, etc. There's a lot of other gaps—Rolf's homeland, and all his crazy traditions, are among them. What fills these holes in their reality? We don't know. And neither—perhaps—do the kids. That's the possibility I'm working with. Because Antonucci WAS so vague in the way of the wider world, with only a few limits on what is and is not possible, the most important of which being that Peach Creek must, no matter what is going on in the greater world, resemble our world as it does in the Canon, it is just as possible as not for the EE&E universe to be, in many important ways, _quite _different. President Kennedy may never have been shot (which would make the spoofing of John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech in "For the Ed, By the Ed" a little more appropriate), for instance (perhaps it could be changed? See, this is what these kinds of questions result in, people!); the Cold War may never have ended, or have been prolonged. In any case, it is extremely possible that EE&E could be (intended to be) taking place in a Parallel Universe, or an Alternate History, so similar to our own that we can relate to it, but different.

Alternate Histories have a Point Of Divergence, but that does not mean that the history is completely changed as of the POD: its effects may not be noticeable, or be hidden, for a long time after the divergence. This provides the opportunity for the next tenet of my fic's continuity: if EE&E is in a hypothetical _Alternate_ History to our own timeline, then the difference could have gone completely unnoticed to us viewers.

Of course, all fiction based on our universe could be described and rationalized according to the same principal. Either way, it goes to support the basic point: this is an Alternate Universe to our own timeline, our own History, even in Canon.

This fic is, in a way, a continuation fic, running on the hypothesis that this is correct. If not, this story runs in an AH that is unrecognizable from the Canon Universe until the beginning of the fic.

I hope that helped clear things up some.

5) Depending on which authors you are referring, I am honored by your comparison, and aspire to continue to meet such standards.

_**Spindash77:**_ As I have mentioned earlier, the pacing of the fic will not pick up for a few chapters, as I have from the beginning had reasons for a slower introduction and have no inclination to mess with a good thing. Allow me to give you a couple of my original reasons: First, I am taking the time to fill the readers in on pertinent background details by means of _including_- "a technique of world building, in which the reader is gradually exposed to background information about the world in which a story is set." **(from Wiki). In a way, this is actually speeding **up the story, as otherwise I would probably have to stop the fic to impart information not touched upon in Canon or create some annoyingly long and chunky exposition dialogue that will have either NO plot relevance in itself, regardless of how helpful the info is, or be blatantly obvious and, god forbid, contrived in its relevance to the plot. And trust me, this fic will NEED those little Easter eggs scattered about. They can be subtle, though. Happy hunting! The other reason is that I wanted to be different from other EE&E Superhero fanfics. A lot of them develop their plots quite quickly and have fairly simple plots, an annoying number of contrivances and things based on 'luck' or 'destiny', have very few plotlines running overall, have off the wall appearances of new characters, protagonists and/or villains, and, worst yet, irrational or out of character behavior influencing monumental decisions. I wanted to avoid those same tendencies, and I feel that starting it out slow and taking my time to build the layers of plots, personalities, motives, and what have you will help improve and maintain the quality of the fic in the long run. In regards to your other point, I believe that this same principal applies.

Now that you've had to sit through all that… On with the Fic!

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter III: If Hitler Invaded Ed…**

Eddy groaned; it really was too early to be awake on a weekend in his book. '_What was __**that**__?'_ he wondered; it certainly wasn't his alarm clock.

A flash of red hair later, and he thought he had found the answer. "Ed, get out of my room," he grumbled, pitching the aforementioned timepiece in the direction of the assumed disturbance and pulling his pillow over his ears.

A clunk informed him that he had missed. "Looks like somebody's grumpy, girls," a teasing, grating female voice told him that he was wrong in his identification. Dead wrong.

Eddy was wide awake now. And sweating. He dived under his sheets and through the mattress. Never before in his life had he been so glad that Lumpy had bored that hole through his mattress during his "Bed Buddy" tangent. _I'll have to thank him later, _Eddy concluded as he flung open the trapdoor under his bed and vanished into the crawlspace.

The three sisters stared after him. Wrinkling her nose at the absolute fuzzy filthiness, Lee said, "I'm not going down there."

May took this personally. "Well, I'm not either! He's _your_ boyfriend!"

"Well, he's gonna come out somewhere. I'd say we stake out his house."

Marie stared after her two sisters. "Hey!" she snapped angrily, dragging the toilet after her. "We've still got a toilet to replace!"

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Eddy popped out of the sewers by Rolf's house and made a beeline for the blue one next door at superhuman speeds. Pounding on the door, he said, "Double D, Double D! Quick, let me in!"

Edd stared at him through the screen. "Eddy…you're ABSOLUTELY FILTHY!" Oh, dear. Looks like somebody forgot about Edd's clean streak.

"YeahIknowdontcare—just let me IN!" the short Ed replied, resuming pounding on the door like a maniac.

Double D was lecturing. "Just give me one good reason why I don't send you back to your house; honestly, I expected better from you, Eddy!" he scolded, cutting off the retort on the tip of Eddy's tongue of 'Yeah? You let _Ed_ in."

"Yeah, well," Eddy said; this was no time for playing games! He glanced nervously around; out of his peripheral vision he saw that the Kankers had realized that he was no longer on his property and were _glancing in his direction!_ "KANKERS!" he hissed desperately; on reflex, Double D swung open the door, pushed Eddy in, slammed both doors shut, and locked all _five_ locks all in one smooth, swift motion. Obviously those KED (Kanker Escape Drills) had paid off.

Double D was about to put the household security system into full lockdown when a shrill voice called out from the kitchen. "_Kankers_?"

A quieter voice added "_Jeepers_".

Eddy stared. "Wait. Sarah, Jimmy? Why are you doing here? What the—?" He was cut-off as Ed announced his presence.

"Hiya, Eddy!" He was sitting at Double D's kitchen table, waving. In that hand, he was holding Baron o' Beef Dip.

Edd panicking said, "Ed, careful with that thing!" but did nothing more; Eddy wondered what had happened….the whole world seemed upside-down!

"Hey! What's going on here?" Double D, taking one last nervous glance out of the peephole, pushed him in the direction of the cellar.

"Not now, Eddy. We'll explain once we've gotten out of harm's way and we've got it in writing that you will not use or extort what you've learned for your own personal gain." Now thoroughly confused, Eddy was about to ask what that meant when Double D instructed, "Everyone, stay calm. Just head on down to the basement." Ed's enthusiastic, snowplowing charge into the cellar ensured that there were no objections.

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Rolf and Johnny surveyed the damages to their homes. Then something caught Plank's—and thus Johnny's—eye. "Wow, Rolf; look!" The bald-headed kid pointed. "The Kanker's got Double D treed!" he noted as the a panicky-looking Edd vanished out of view from the window.

Blue, hairy, and as of now fanged looked around, and suddenly forgot his own present condition. "Eek! The three foul witches of the trailer park circle the Too-Smart-For-His-Own-Hat-Ed-Boy's home with hunger! Quick, we must free the Ed boy!"

Johnny, usually all for this, was incredulous—wasn't this why he had spent most of the morning hiding in Rolf's smelly sheep-temple? "_What?"_

He didn't have a chance to argue; the blue wolf-human-cat…thing was already barreling over the fence.

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"Ahwoooo-oooo-ooo!"

"What is _that_?"

Next to Marie, Lee shifted her bangs to get a better look. "I dunno. It looks like something that came out from behind the refrigerator!"

"It's a werewolf!" exclaimed May.

"Don't be stupid. It can't…" Marie broke off, eyeing the big, blue, snarling wolf-thing that looked about to rip them to shreds. "…Okay, I take that back."

Lee summed it up for the sisters. "RUN!" The Kankers bolted. Wolf-Rolf bounded forward in pursuit…and tripped on the toilet that Marie had abandoned in the need for speed.

He was flung forward by his momentum, and he hit his head against Double D's wall. He collapsed, knocked unconscious.

Even the Kankers stopped and stared as the once-hulking man-beast returned to his original human form.

The current inhabitants of the house, who had tentatively left the house to see why the Kankers had ceased trying to break in, shared the sisters' astonishment. Well, except for Ed, who looked just about ready to explode in giddiness. "ROLF'S MUTATED!"

"Well, that solves Rolf's problem, huh, Plank?" Jonny asked. "See? I told Rolf he wasn't cursed!"

Still standing as far away from the Kankers as possible, Double D looked thoughtful. "Johnny, did you say that you knew of this…?"

"Yup." Jonny returned his focus to Rolf, prodding him experimentally with a corner of Plank.

Edd blinked. _Curse hyperactive literalness…_ "Where was he, Johnny? How was he taking it?" he prompted.

Johnny shrugged. "We found him in his storm cellar, bawling about being a blood-traitor."

"Hm." Edd pulled out a sterilized cotton swab, opened the wrapper, and jammed it into the unconscious Rolf's mouth, scraping it along the inner side of his left cheek.

"Rolf hates wolves, Double D," Ed piped up, poking Rolf with a stick.

From behind them, a familiar voice drawled, "Hey, what's go-" It was cut off as Eddy, who couldn't take it anymore, just happened to shout "Hey! What's going on here?"

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Kevin stared at Eddy.

Eddy stared at Kevin.

Both were surprised that the other was thinking the same thing. "Dork," Kevin said as if it explained everything, much to his rival's irritation. Facing the familiar, the tenseness that had subconsciously developed among the regular residents of the cul-de-sac subsided.

Exhaling, relieved, Edd slipped the cotton swab back into the opaque blue and white-plastic sleeve, sealed it, and labled it. "Well, actually, Kevin…"

"Hey! What about me?" Sarah shouted, seeing that Edd was collecting samples of _Rolf_, of all people. Jimmy stood behind her, arms crossed, silently backing her up.

"I'm working on it, Sarah; the timing …"

"On what?" Lee suspiciously demanded. Edd did not answer; he was deep in thought. He needed a DNA sample of another person who had blue hair for cross-referencing…they needed to know if the cause of Rolf's transformation was gene-related, so that they could plan appropriately. Because if it was actually writ _into_ his genetics, then as far as they were concerned, there was nothing he, or anyone else, could do. But in order to determine that, he would have to ask… _Oh, dear…_

He glanced over at the one other blue-haired person there, and gulped. _Well, here goes nothing…_ "M-Marie, may I have a lock of your hair…" he stuttered. "If it's not too much trouble, that is…" He backed behind a very confused Ed.

"Sockhead, _what_…?" Eddy muttered to him. Mortified, Edd grimaced—he hadn't intended it to come out _that _way…

By that time everyone was staring, especially Nazz, who had just walked up to see what the commotion was about/why her house was in ruins, and was presently having the biggest non-sequitur moment of her life. Marie, after computing that in fact, despite the surreality of the situation, she had _not_ woken up when she pinched herself, and thus she was _not_ dreaming, was the first to wake up from the stunned silence that had fallen upon the lot. Grinning, she cracked, "Well, it's about _time_!"

Double D slapped himself across the forehead; why had he phrased it like that? "For a DNA sample," he clarified; Eddy, relieved, cracked into nervous giggles. "You can have mine, Double D," Ed quipped; Eddy erupted into a second gale of laughter. Lee glared at the duo, causing them to shut up.

Jimmy, Jonny, and Nazz took the opportunity to pick up the unconscious European and carry him into Double D's house—well away from the prodding finger of the curious-but-not-all-there and the trodding feet of the Trailer Park Amazons.

Ignoring this, Marie looked crestfallen, but rolled her eyes and shrugged. "What for?" she asked glumly.

"Well, I need to analyze Rolf's DNA for any other abnormalities in his genetics, but I need to have an object of comparison, a control group, if you will, for his blue hair mutation, since none of his family have blue hair… Additionally, I will also have to single out the root of that mutation…"

"I am not a freak-show," Marie interjected sharply. "I refuse to be treated like one," she said.

"I didn't say you were," Edd said diplomatically, cutting the tension. "Nevertheless, you _do _have blue hair…"

"Unless it's dyed," an ever-suspicious Kevin muttered. Unfortunately for him, the Kankers heard, and hissed at this. (The others blinked, surprised that she was not ripping the jock's head off.)

Marie whipped her head around and glared at him, suddenly livid. Instead, the trailer-park-terror Number Two "Hey! I'm a _natural _blue!" she objected. (Kevin took this as his cue to leave and bolted. _Let the dorks deal with their fangirls…_)

"Exactly," Edd cut in quickly. "You are a bit of an oddity, Marie; natural blue hair is not an officially accepted part of the standard human phenotype…" He hesitated, then said, "Which does make you a mutant of some sort…but it does not necessarily make you a 'freak'…"

Marie mulled it over just as Lee cut in, "Why are you asking for a _hair_ sample, then? Why not… whatever you were doing to that guy?"

Double D provided his reason. "Because I already have a hair sample from Rolf; however, I would like to have a fresher sample in case his hair has degraded. Since I do not know if his hair is contaminated by some chemical—but as he is not poisoned, it is a rational presumption that the suspected contaminant had not been consumed. Thus, a cheek swab would the more accurate gauge." He sighed; the eyes of everyone around him had glazed over. Well, except Ed, who wasn't paying attention anyways.

Lee blinked; where did that guy keep this stuff? "Right…" she said skeptically. "We'll take your word on it."

Double D, recognizing the futility in his continued efforts to make sense, only sighed. "Perhaps that is best…"

May cut him off. "Hey! Where did the short Ed and Big Ed go?" Double D blinked, and, looking behind him, realized that, right next to where Ed was still standing, there was thin air where two notable loudmouths should have been…

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"Hey, Fluffy, what's going on here?"

"Quite a bit, Kevin!" The white-haired boy smiled slyly, anticipating the chance to do some of his own style of storytelling, and sat down. "Pull up a chair and gather around, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll fill you in!"

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"Meh, they just went back into his house, dimwit!" Breathing a sigh of relief, Double D completely missed the smirk that suddenly flitted across Marie's face; she had had an idea. To the 'Too-Smart-For-His-Own-Hat Ed-boy', she said, "Alright. I'll give you the hair…but I want a favor done in return."

Double D winced; he _really_ needed that sample… Anticipating what was to come, he, shuddering, asked "What is it?"

Marie smirked, noticing his trembling; she really did love playing around with his emotions. _So cute…_ "Fix our toilet." Double D blinked, relieved that for once he had escaped any more misguided amorous attempts; in that moment of stillness she grabbed him at the wrist and started pulling him towards the trailer park, leaving him no option but to comply as her sisters dragged _The Porcelain Lead Weight_ back to the trailer park.

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	5. Chapter IV—Ed the Plumber

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Notes For Reviewers: **

_**Helena:**_ Oh. I did go overboard there, didn't I? ****_**^' **_Ah, well, never claimed to be perfect. In answer to your clarified question, I used for the background no book nor movie nor comic nor fanfic other than Antonucci's Great Work. I do, however, admit that my initial plot bunny was sparked by the Eds-With-Superpowers fics on the site, especially Nintendo Nut1's fic _Super Eds _(which is a really good fic, by the way, and I highly recommend it. If you have not read it, it's on my favorites list, so go check it out!), but while even it had inspired elements of the plot, it really didn't touch the building of the backstories of this fic. I do use history for the largest framework of this fic's background, but I doubt that counts—history only provides the setting for the backstory. In terms of filling in the backstory with real events, or finding real events to act as a framework for the story, I do use Wikipedia (love the site) when my own memory fails me. For additional inspiration, writing advice, and help in the storybuilding process, I often consult TV Tropes and Idioms (another site I love and recommend for all, but implore all new lurkers to avoid until they have a free weekend as it is highly addictive and will lead to _very_ time-consuming wikiwalks), but even for suggested elements from the site (oddly enough, one of the WMGs was VERY similar to my own concepts for the fic, but had arrived through seperate means—great minds think alike, I suppose. It did provide evidence that made the theory far more sensible, however) it always must be the author to give the go-ahead for incorporation and work the idea in.

In response to your new question—you got it right on the nose! ^ ^

_**To All: **_When you review with comments specific to a chapter, please review under that chapter, but if the contents of your review refer to more than one chapter, but place the review the chapter that is the subject of commentary under that chapter's heading. If you have separate comments for separate chapters, please place each comment in a separate review. It's not that I am complaining, but I have come to understand that most people do not like to do proper citations if they do not have to (i.e. their grade depends on it), and hope that by following this system we all may benefit from this method of maintaining organization and clarity. Thank you.

**Note For Readers: **Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me… Today's my birthday, and I'm now a legal adult! Poor world; I have to doubt my own generation's maturity at this age… is there any wonder why I am a firm believer in the adage 'Maturity is subjective'? Anyways, in celebration of my birthday I've performed a QUADRUPLE update! Mind you, I sincerely doubt this will ever happen again; I've had these chapters all but ready to go for over six months now, and I'm soon going to have to do more than just streamlining and proofreading to get the chapters in working order. Ah, well, we'll all just enjoy this while we can.

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter IV: Ed the Plumber**

"So _that's_ why the Kankers were trashing the cul-de-sac," Kevin commented, pulling another card from the pile and laying down another wiener. Johnny grinned; after Jimmy had finished, he had opted to chip his own two cents in. He was still proud not only that Plank had figured out the best hiding spot in the cul-de-sac in fifty seconds flat but that he could explain how the whole toilet thing came in (even if he couldn't see why the kids found the latter to be so much more interesting than the former). Now, he shrugged, and turned away from the cards and fake-betting to look out the window.

Yup. They were playing poker using the sausage links that they (Eddy) had filched from Rolf's pockets. Sure, they were going to turn him in to the Son of a Shepherd (Eddy really did have to get over _that_ little habit and some lessons needed to be learned the hard way), but they were going to have fun first.

"Your turn, Jimmy," Nazz announced, calling over to where the youngest kid in the cul-de-sac was applying another cold press to their wounded comrade's forehead.

"Be right over-eep!" Jimmy broke off as Johnny let out a shout.

"Hey! Plank says the Kankers have taken Double D!"

"What?" a certain scammer said, dashing to the window. All the other (conscious) kids crammed in around the Big-Headed One and the Footstool-Head.

"…Um, Jonny? There's no one there," Nazz observed awkwardly.

"Yeah, I know; Plank only just mentioned it!" All the other kids groaned; they should have seen this one coming. And so, the poker game resumed.

All but for two. "Hey, Jonny… Shouldn't somebody do something? They've taken our smart guy!"

"Not to worry Eddy; for Double D has made a deal with witches but devils keep contracts." Ed said, coming out of nowhere and cutting off Jonny before he could begin.

"Where'd you come from?"

"Wormholes, Eddy," Ed snickered, hoping for a repeat of the conversation he had had with Sarah earlier that morning.

Eddy didn't take the bait; he only cocked an eyebrow. But then Jonny said, "Right on!"; he was looking up. And so, against his better judgment, Eddy too looked up…

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"The geyser's back." For the fourteenth time in thirty-eight minutes. Everyone at the trailer was getting pretty well fed up with the whole thing.

The toilet had been an easy fix, Double D reflected; it was the main conduit bringing water into the trailer that was now giving him trouble. It had exploded just as he had been about to leave the trailer. Slightly pitying the Kankers' predicament—though able to afford a plumber, they were not made of money, and it would be unnecessarily cruel to leave them literally high and dry—and to counter May's accusations that he had "sabotaged their plumbing" ("Wow, May, _'Sabotaged'_? I thought you had skipped that chapter!" Marie had snarked) and protect his reputation, he had volunteered to attempt a repair (in exchange for a favor at some later date).

Lee had dubbed it "the geyser" after the fifth time it had fountained up spectacularly.

Double D had easily identified the problem within the first minute: water pressure was suddenly increasing in the pipes and succeeding the pipe's holding capacity, bursting the pipe at the seams. He could have just created an overflow valve to release the excess water, but, again, the Kankers were not made of money, and all that unused water would certainly be reflected on their water bill. Thus, he set out to find the cause: a task easier said than done. There was no problem with the pipes themselves—they were merely the capillaries of the public water distribution systems, not the heart. More baffling was that there seemed to be no pattern to when the flow's pressure increased beyond what the pipes could handle, or, more mysteriously, when the amount of water pressure _subsided_.

Well, except for what May had almost jestingly observed—that every time Marie got near, the pipes burst. Double D had originally dismissed the idea; she had been near the water main only four times, so it couldn't possibly be that. In the back of his mind, however, a little voice told him not to dismiss the idea entirely (_Well, you have no _better_ explanation…_) as he grasped at straws for any elucidation.

It was only when Marie, for whatever reason, had slammed open the screen door and come over to see whether or not the toilet could be flushed yet, and the water had suddenly came jetting up in Edd's face, nearly removing his hat, did he reconsider his earlier dismissal. _...And now to test the impossible…_

"Marie, step away from the plumbing… Give it about three yards," he, sopping wet, requested while eying the still-fountaining aqueous stream with apprehension.

"What? _Why_?"

Silently, Double D cursed the Kankers' compulsive resistance to authority of any sort. "Just do it," he said. "It's just an experiment entirely relevant to the current plumbing troubles your trailer is having."

Shrugging, the blue-haired Kanker humored his request. To their surprise, the water streaming out of the crack significantly lessened. Eddward felt the exhilarating surge of anticipation that he felt right before he made a significant discovery. "Give it another," he called.

She backed away another three strides. The fountain had lessened to a slight bubble—a leak from the crack in the pipeline. It was the most progress, and the least amount of water escaping the pipeline, he had seen since the Kankers had returned to their (then) relatively dry trailer. "Thank you, Marie!" he called out, and she took that as a sign that she could come closer to the point of quandary, sending up another huge wave.

Double D had a sudden surge of insight that the additional eleven times the water had jetted up spectacularly may have been when the Middle Sister had been too close to the pipe while _inside_ the trailer.

So indeed all signs seemed to point that Marie Kanker was the cause of her family's plumbing troubles. He jolted up giddily, excited. _Eureka! _Then his mood turned from euphoria to dread.

_Oh, dear…_ He couldn't just tell them that so long as Marie Kanker stayed away from the family's plumbing, The Geyser wouldn't return; that would be like telling them to send one of their own into exile! They would not do it, and so nothing would be mended.

He mulled it over. It reminded him greatly of the problem that had come to him earlier that day…

"…_but you might set your house on fire, Sarah," Jimmy, sitting on the bed, pointed out. Sarah's eyes widened as she considered how this might just be the precursor of something much more dangerous._

…Double D wondered how this unusual occurrence might be connected to the first and second that he had encountered that day. (He also realized now that Marie's hair would not be of as much use as he had thought when cross-referencing Rolf's genome to a more normal person of the same hair pigment; neither were normal. Nevertheless, he now had a new goal—compare and contrast all three of the affected—and their relatives'—DNA and see what comes up.)

He sighed; he had to think like Ed on this one: this was well beyond the realm of normal science. _How had Sarah turned off the temperature?_, he mused. _She was shocked, yes, but then, she wanted it to _stop…He dwelled on that for a moment. _But Marie also wants it to stop… but maybe she is not being specific enough… _"Marie," he said. She lifted her head up from her hands and gave him an interested look that said, _I'm listening_. "Try…focusing on the water stopping…" _Wait, that is not _quite_ it…_ "I-I mean, focus on making" he fought the urge to gag at this; superpowers were not supposed to exist! And yet, here was one that seemed to have no other explanation… "…on the water slowing down."

As he had predicted, she scowled. "That's stupid."

"Just… bear with me on this one. I think this may be the solution to your predicament."

"You're crazy," Lee said from the doorway—she had come out to see what was taking Marie so long.

"Maybe so," Double D admitted—technically, he _was_ obsessive compulsive, neurotic, and had several other mental disorders… "But… try."

Marie rolled her eyes, and complied—the day so far had been weird enough that this might just work. After a few moments, the water subsided, despite her proximity to the pipe. She blinked, and in her lapse of focus, the water spurted up again.

Lee was astounded. "Maybe try telling it to _stay_ that way. Or…"

Her younger sister glared at her. "I've got the idea, Lee!" she remarked; she _really_ didn't like being pushed around like a puppet. "I'll just make it stay in the pipes…" she grumbled.

"And lessen the water pressure," Double D reminded.

"I've got this under control," she snapped. Double D nodded, got up, and backed _well _away from the trailer—he was not about to lose his hat now!

Then, something occurred to him. "Can you make the current stop?"

Marie hissed as the water suddenly spurted up in her face. "Sure," she growled—she looked about willing to _end_ it all right. Except that water was a molecule—killing it was not an option.

When the flow through the pipe disappeared, Double D took the chance to replace the damaged pipe with a new one. "Great. Er… the pipe is possibly usable, but give it some time to dry first…"

"Hey! I told you!" May said excitedly, joining her red-haired sister on the stairs.

Lee and Marie cracked up: he had actually taken _her_ advice? Lee, through her laughing fit, asked him about it. "Well, it was turning out to be an absolute mystery, and I had no other lead to go on…" he replied.

After a moment, though, Marie asked, "How long?"

"For the glue to dry? About…" he grimaced; "…twelve hours…" He winced, anticipating the shrieks of anger to come.

They didn't.

He opened his eyes. The Kankers did not look surprised. "Good enough for me," Lee said. "We'll just use the main office." He realized that Marie had returned to the stairs. Double D was surprised—he hadn't thought he would get out of that unscathed. "So… What's the payment?"

"Getting out of here unscathed, a favor, and…" Double D paused in his list, and requested, "…hair samples from _all_ of you. I have come to the conclusion that I need more than just the afflicted and a single object of comparison in order for the analysis to produce effective results."

"Sounds good," Lee conceded—hey, it saved them a plumber visit!—and she and May plucked a couple of strands, while Marie pulled out a plastic baggie containing a few blue hairs. The two lighter-haired sisters added their strands to the collection.

Marie, seemingly the appointed messenger, leaped off the stairs and thrust the bag into his hands. "Is this something to do with why I can make the water do things?"

"Yes."

"…If you find I'm related to a water god or something, let me know."

Lee let out a bark of laughter, and Double D decided it was his time to bolt. He did so, and without pursuit, gratefully left the trailer park behind.

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	6. Chapter V—Full and Ed

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter V: Full and Ed**

_Eddy didn't take the bait; he only cocked an eyebrow. But then Jonny said, "Right on!"; he was looking up. And so, against his better judgment, Eddy too looked up…_

"Ed, why's there a hole in Double D's ceiling?"

"I put it there, Eddy." Eddy groaned; Sockhead would make a racket for this.

'This' was a swirling, perfectly circular hole, faintly glowing a pale green along the sides, in the ceiling of Double D's kitchen. It couldn't possibly have been made by Ed. Not only was it not Ed-shaped, but it couldn't have been more than a foot deep—yet through it Eddy could see clear blue sky. Double D's house had two stories, and they were on the first, so it shouldn't have been possible… Eddy craned his neck, squinting against the suddenly bright light. _What the…?_

He never even saw it coming when the small, sticky, runny, green-spotted white projectile landed _smack-dab in the __**middle**__ of his __**face**__._ Mentally he groaned as he felt the white liquid drizzle across his face.

Jonny let out a bark. "Nice one, Eddy!" Eddy growled; as much as he wanted to snap at Jonny, drinking bird juice was not on his agenda…Ever!

"Oops, sorry, Eddy," Ed said, and snapped his fingers. The gap closed as suddenly and silently as it appeared.

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"I _hate_ birds," Eddy grumbled, wiping the last vestiges of white stickiness from his face. Throwing the towel into a laundry chute—he didn't know or care which one; Double D was already going to have a fit that he had touched the sticky notes on the mirror—he sauntered down the stairs…

And took a step back as something WHUMP!-ed against the door. A moment later the door swung open and an exhausted but otherwise undamaged-looking Edd staggered in and promptly collapsed on the entry floor in a heap.

Eddy stared down, then looked back over the living room, where the kids were now staring and Rolf was still knocked out. "We're going to run out of couches," Eddy observed offhandedly, sounding slightly stunned at the realization.

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"So Double D honestly thinks that _you're_ the cause of this…thing?" May asked, gesturing in the general direction of the bathroom, for the fifth time in a row.

The Kankers were trying to get their trailer back in order, and keep it from sinking into the massive mud puddle that had formed from the all the run-off.

"What? You're ears are clogged or something?" Translation: Yes.

"I heard you the first time, Marie! I just…" May paused, and said, "I just can't really believe it."

Marie looked skeptical. "_You_ suggested it," Lee pointed out bluntly.

"I _know_, guys—I was just **joking**. And…" she hesitated. "And it made a lot more sense _then_!" Lee and Marie looked worriedly at each other—they knew that crack in their little sister's voice. It meant that oversensitive May was getting to the "I'm going to have a tantrum now" level of distress.

Which meant that the rest of their day would be miserable if they didn't find a distraction.

Marie huffed, and said, "Here's proof." She focused on the puddle of water—_will this work?_—and silently willed it to disappear. She let out a grunt and felt the wind knocked out of her, as if she had just attempted to push a large box full of bricks.

"Yeah, right Marie," May said stubbornly, pointing at the sluice.

Marie stared at the pool. Nothing had happened. _Okay, that didn't work._ "Let me give it another try," she persisted.

Lee shrugged, and leaned back against her shovel; she wanted to see if Marie could replicate the feat she had managed before. "Beats lugging dirt," she rationalized to May, who couldn't help but agree. "Give it a shot."

With the go-ahead given, Marie wondered how she was going to go about this. _Okay, so telling it to disappear didn't work… probably there's some physics against it or something. Drat. So how…_ Her eyes widened as she remembered a video she had watched in cooking class about making alcoholic drinks, in one of the times she had decided to _not _cause trouble or fall asleep, and actually paid attention. (The Kanker sisters couldn't cause chaos _all_ the time—they had to not fail, for one; they couldn't risk expulsion, for another.) _**Distilled**__ spirits…?_ She remembered that the demonstration still for moonshine distillation had used boiling to make the alcohol evaporate… which meant become gas, or effectively disappear, like raindrops on a hot radiator, if it wasn't caught and cooled… _Wait. Water can be evaporated, too. _She knew from a documentary—some crazy guy trying to survive on a tropical island with only basic survival gear—that that steam could be collected by the still and used as nice, clean drinking water, but without the still… _Okay, I can _totally _do_ _this. _She couldn't just make the water disappear, so Plan A was out but… _Time for Plan B._

She willed the water to heat up and become steam and rise up. At first, nothing happened, and then… a bubble popped in the mud. And then another. And then _another_. Soon enough, this huge cloud of steam was rising from the bubbling ground like water spilled on the hot stove! It was actually _obeying_ her! Much to her surprise, it didn't make her feel like she had a lead weight on her chest, like it had in her last attempt. It slightly exhausted her, but…really, it was energizing. Exhilarating.

And then it was over. The last traces of steam spiraled up in lazy little bands, dispersing. Had it only taken a minute?

She examined the dry ground; it wasn't just dry—it was _parched_. Cracks streaked through it like a bad blister. _Maybe I overdid it… _"Oops." She looked up, and noticed her sisters, who had plastered themselves against the trailer, wavering between varying degrees of shock, fear, and awe. "Well, it's dry," she justified. Lee pinched the bridge of her nose, annoyed.

Before she could say anything, however, May piped up, "Hey! I wonder if I can do that too!" Her face screwed up with focus as she zoned in on a patch of land a yard away from her.

"You look constipated," Marie said rudely. Lee snorted.

May glared at the middle Kanker. "Shut up!" she said, and a huge gust of wind unleashed itself on the target of her righteous anger, barreling Marie into Lee and knocking Lee, too, off her feet.

Lee groaned, and May, amazed on that her wish had come true—that her sister would be hit with a hurricane like she had seen on TV the night before—said "Whoa."

Marie sat up and rubbed her head, which was sore from colliding with Lee's jaw. Her only coherent thought, aside from _Ow_ was "Okay, you know, whatever Double D finds in our DNA, he's going to have a _field day_."

(The only logical follow-through for this was to wonder how she could use this development to seduce him.)

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In the end, it was decided that since it was Double D's house, putting him on the couch with Rolf was not necessary (no matter how funny Kevin and Eddy thought it would be), and Ed lifted up the fallen Ed and carried him to the safety of his room, leaving the rest of the kids to wonder just what had transpired.

Because up until then, it was unheard of for anyone to come out of the trailer park unscathed without some sort of payment. (Some of the detailed ones had to wonder what was sacrificed.) As Plank so eloquently put it, "You pay to get away".

Alas, as the only one who could tell them what had happened (aside from the Kankers, whom nobody wanted to go near) was currently lying on his bed, dead to the world, all they could do was wait.

Fortunately, Double D had cable, so the next half hour was spent fighting—erm, I mean _loudly_ _debating_—over what they were going to watch. It was during one of these spats over the remote that the poor hunk of plastic slipped out of the grasping hands of the two combatants (Sarah and Eddy) playing tug-of-war over it and was sent flying up and over them, hitting Rolf in the face. With a gasp of sharply inhalation, the kids backed away from the sofa (Sarah last of all, after she had rescued the remote), and silently watched as the not-wolf stirred.

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Edd woke up sneezing. Untangling himself from the heap he had been piled in (most likely by Ed) on his bed, he quickly gathered his location, and silently thanking the others for their thoughtfulness in putting him in a location where he could begin immediately, started working.

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White ceiling. Darkness. White ceiling and blue wall. Darkness. White ceiling and blue wall and… Rolf's eyes slid into focus. Ah! Bright light! In pain at seeing the bright window, Rolf clamped his eyes closed a third time.

He inhaled. That is when the taste of the air hit Rolf's nostrils like the overpowering stench of Father's work socks after a hot day's work. The scents of the world just came rushing in, coming, coming, never stopping, ever getting clearer, sharper, more focused… Rolf blinked—mostly out of surprise, since though the strain of the bright light on Rolf's eyes wasn't so strong now, he realized he didn't need to see. Scents told him everything. He could smell the pungent reek of Doggy-Doo-Ed-boy's filthy jacket. He could smell the Nazz-girl's frivolous finger-paint. He could scent the flowery-fresh scent of crybaby Jimmy's shampoo. He could…

Rolf winced—what was that sound? It was so loud, so sharp, so shrill! It bit the air like Wilfred on bath day! He listened again, and realized that it was coming from outside—sirens of the trucks of the men-in-yellow-suits. The fire-fighting-people. So someone outside the cul-de-sac _had_ noticed the ruckus and sent for aid. Good.

Wait. Why the fighters of fire…? He tasted the air—_tasted?_—and was met with the bitter, smoky taste of burnt, dusty detritus. _Smoke?_ Why was there the smelly byproduct of fire floating through the air?

That brought on another question in the son of a shepherd's mind: where was he? He looked again, and realized that he was in the Head-in-Sock Ed-boy's living room! He wondered what had led to him laying there.

Then he remembered. The whole, gods-cursed thing. "NO-OO-OOOH!"

"Geeze, Rolf! You don't have to yell!"

"Ah-yee! Flee for your lives! The son of a shepherd has been cursed! Be-" Rolf stopped suddenly, eying his hand, which was no longer blue and furry. "Why is Rolf no longer a vicious stealer of the shepherd's flock?" The less…_culturally aware_…kids looked at each other, silently debating something, and scooted Jonny-the-Wood-Boy forward.

Jonny said, "You never were, Rolf! Well, vicious, anyways… You were kind of blue and biggish and stuff…" He trailed off, glancing up the stairs, and then returned his focus. "But we don't think you're cursed—Ed and Double D say you mutated."

Rolf's unibrow furrowed, perplexed. Then he realized what the Wood-Boy must have meant. _Even more confusing…_ "Rolf is not mutton."

Now Jonny looked confused. "…Yeah. We'll just let Double D explain…when he wakes up." Then he brightened. "You hungry? Jimmy's making popcorn!"

Ah. Now Rolf was back on familiar ground. He sat up. "No cracked corn for Rolf, thank you. Rolf brings sausages…" He trailed off, patting down his pockets—where did the wieners go? Fury building, he asked, "Son of a gun, who has made off with Rolf's fine sausages?" The kids looked slightly guiltily at each other, then…

"Eddy did it!" Kevin, smirking, pushed Eddy forward. Rolf heard the crowd, and though he was not an advocate of mob rule, history was on their side…

His incensed gaze turned to Eddy, the most likely culprit. "Son of a gun, what have you done with Rolf's wieners?" The kids backed away into the kitchen, leaving Eddy to his fate…well, except for Ed and Jimmy, who were already in the kitchen.

Backing away as the furious foreigner stomped forward, fearing for his life, the neighborhood pickpocket pleaded his case. "What do you mean, Rolf? I didn't take your stupid hot-dogs…well, at least I was going to give them back!"

"Now you say that Rolf's sausages are made from the flesh of a dog! Tell me, Edboy, why do you insult Rolf—not once, but TWICE?" He received no answer; the trembling Ed-boy was far too afraid to speak up. Nevertheless, tradition must be honored… "Rolf challenges you to a duel!"

Flashing back to that day of terrifying, flailing tuna, Eddy began to panic. "Hey, wait Rolf! I can return them! I swear! ED! GIVE BACK ROLF'S HOT DOGS!"

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	7. Chapter VI—Lessons Learned the Ed Way

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter VI: Lessons Learned the Ed Way**

"Wow, guys, don't you think this is a little cruel, leaving Eddy in there alone like that?" Nazz asked, placing a bag onto the microwave turntable and setting the timer.

"It's a lesson he needs to learn," Jimmy said calmly, applying a healthy lump of butter into the stove-popped corn.

Exactly when their snack had degenerated into a full-out debate between the taste of microwavable and stove-top popping corn was a complete mystery to them, but Nazz and Jimmy were more than willing to end that debate. And, in Nazz's case, to prove once and for all that _yes_, there _is_ one dish she can make and not turn into rat poison.

_Ding!_ Both of them perked up; Nazz grabbed a pair of oven mitts and pulled out the piping hot, greasy, salty, buttery-smelling bag; Jimmy hastily applied his preferred dose of salt.

Carrying the bag and bowl to the table, the two cooks heard a jubilant, heavily accented voice saying, "Rolf's honor has been avenged! Come, Edboy! The Eels of Forgiveness may be busy marinating the yams, but Rolf shall celebrate by consuming weakling city-boy popped corn! Care to join me, yes?" The victorious Rolf came waltzing merrily into the kitchen, dragging with him a battered, fish-smelling Eddy who looked for some reason like Christmas had come early.

Kevin looked like he agreed with him.

Alas, poor Rolf—no-one else here appreciates the Eels of Forgiveness. (Besides Ed.)

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Edd perused through the DNA Sequencer's findings—he had never understood why his parents had kept such a machine in their own home, but once again he found himself not complaining in the least—and highlighting several oddities that he found intriguing on the computer print-outs.

For one thing, he found that the Kanker Sisters were, as he had expected, in fact _half-sisters_. Their mitochondrial DNA was exactly the same, and on cross-referencing, half of their nucleic DNA came out saying about the same thing, but their genetic similarities almost entirely ended after that point.

For another, it seems that Ed and Sarah really _were _Russians. Ed was not kidding. Edd wondered if the loveable lug had known of his ancestry.

But what he had been looking for he found not in the expressed phenotypes—but rather, in the ironically titled "junk" DNA, the genes not expressed in proteins. There, he found rather obvious evidence that the Kankers', Rolf's, and Sarah and Ed's genetics had been tampered with—particularly useless pieces had been cut out and replaced with pieces that had atypical effects when expressed.

What made it so obvious was that for the Kankers and the , the replaced DNA seemed to be _exactly the same._ Then why did the genes express themselves so differently? There was no alternative cause to the oddity, since this seemed to be the only truly significant, abnormal similarity shared between the subjects. Thus, he hypothesized that perhaps it was how the replacement genetic material reacted with the preexisting, remaining original genetic code, and perhaps the mindset of the person, that determined how it manifested.

Rolf's, on the other hand, was very different, though it seemed to have been applied through the same technique.

Eddward had to wonder: Were any of the others' the same? His own, he knew, had already been tampered with more than once—god forbid that Ed should ever find out—but not the same genes, as far as he could tell. Then again… He decided to check on his own DNA first, which he had already sequenced without his parents' knowledge.

Silently, he thanked his parents' understanding of his interest in truly in-depth study; they had originally permitted him to use the DNAS in order to sequence hairs he found caught on trees in order to study the demographics of mammal life in the area.

Now, it seems he had a new use for it.

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"Eep!" Everyone stared at Jimmy, who had been ignored in the spectacle of the two combatants rejoining their number. His hands were no longer holding the bowl filled to the brim with fluffy, puffed-up kernels—but try as he may, the bowl seemed quite intent on sticking to his hands like overly-tenacious sticky tape! The contents of the bowl seemed to be the largest part of the problem—couldn't try anything more vigorous without spilling the popcorn. "Sarah, the popcorn will spill!" His friend had a solution.

"I'll get another bowl, Jimmy! Don't panic—just _stay calm_." With Sarah safely out of range in the kitchen, Eddy let out a laugh.

The bowl that Sarah had been carrying back then made impact with his head. "Watch it, Flat-head!" She picked up the bowl, still spinning from the Frisbee throw, and set it down on the table. "Go ahead, Jimmy." Thanking the fiery redhead, Jimmy awkwardly poured the popcorn in.

"_Has the entire orb of the earth gone insane?"_ Rolf muttered.

Kevin looked at him incredulously. "You're telling me. I don't—"

CLANG! Whatever Kevin was about to say was lost, as Jimmy's retainer became the next target of the metal bowl's mysterious attractive properties.

"Cool!" Jonny said through a mouthful of Knickerbockers'.

The white-haired boy, on the other hand, disagreed with Jonny's positive assessment. "Somebody, help me!"

"I'll save you, Jimmy!" Sarah said, pulling on the other side of the metal container. Realizing that she alone could not help, she said lightly, "If pulling doesn't work, we could try cutting it off at the hand!" With that disturbing image in mind, Nazz shortly joined in, as did Kevin and Rolf, and even Jonny left Plank's side to try and help the youngest of them get…detached… from the metallic tormentor.

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"Whoa." Even though he was trained firefighter, Lieutenant Kubat of Engine 49 had not been expecting wreckage on this scale in such a small town. "It's like a hurricane came through here!" He said, handing back the images emailed from the informant's digital camera.

His direct commander, on the other hand, looked less than surprised. "Yeah, get used to it—by the time the year is out, every time you hear the word 'Peach Creek Estates', you'll be getting your game face on."

Mike raised his eyebrows. "Surely it's _not_ that bad." The company officer just laughed—a harsh, bitter, raucous sound, hoarsened from years of smoke inhalation and barking into radios. The new guy on the force felt a stroke of dread weight down his stomach.

"You're right—it's worse!" he cawed. Then he sobered, and made eye contact with Mike, his dark eyes sober with an indefinable emotion. "Seriously, though…it's amazing these kids do half the damage they do…"

Now, Mike was truly skeptical. "_Kids_," he echoed incredulously. "…Where are their parents?" Surely, if these kids were so dangerous, their parents would at least try to keep them on a short leash.

"Working," the middle-aged man sighed exasperatedly. "You're new to the department, but you got to understand—if there is any real life proof that the old model of family life is deteriorating, then this is it. The parents work all the time up in the factories—you know, where most of the emergencies come from?—and…"

"Wait. So their parents are never home?" Mike interrupted, disturbed.

"Mostly—the Gypsy kid—well, sort of, anyway; apparently his ancestors made their troupe settle down and take up farming and a barter system after money became worthless in Europe after World War I, and his great-grandfather made them modify their way of life to look like they had been living there for generations the moment that he got wind of what the Nazis were doing. They say that because their village was so remote and they perverted their entire culture so well that the Nazi scouts not only believed them, but after being exposed to their customs for a week, they slotted them down as "wildlife" and turned their area into a game preserve…_Damn_ I would've liked to see that…" The older fireman took on a wistful expression as he rambled; he really seemed to like telling this tale.

"Sir, you're rambling," the driver said. The officer looked apologetic.

"Sorry bout that…it's an interesting story, if you ever have the time to listen… Anyways, that kid's grandmother is usually home, and most of their parents are home at least in the evenings… There's one kid whose parents are really high on the food chain at that research facility—DATO, SCRAPA, something like that?—his mother usually is only home two days a week, three during the summer, and the father only gets home once a week if he's lucky. But unless something really major comes up—and for these people, the entire block being trashed is nothing; the factories are the main cause of the emergencies we respond to, after all—so that is about all the parental involvement these kids get. All and all, these kids are really quite self-sufficient."

Mike had a bone to pick with that. "It seems rather unsafe."

His commander/tour guide nodded. "Yup. You're from Seattle, right? Well, there, and in most places, you'd be completely right. Heck, in the south end, trying anything like this would be pretty dumb. But up here and in southern Lemon Brook, it's the opposite." Mike stared at him, daring him to go on, which he did. "It's Gypsy territory," he said plainly—when Mike did not indicate comprehension, he went on. "After some jackass decided to pull something on one of their own, the clan made it quite clear that they can and would take the law into their own hands, and PCPD would never catch them in the act or get enough evidence to call them on it. They say that they only use household chores for punishment, so the Forensics people never can find evidence. But whatever they do is unusual but certainly quite effective. _Whatever_ _it_ _is_—the police never were able to get anything out of their victims. So, criminals worth their salt don't go here anymore. And for the rest… well, as I said," he chuckled bitterly, "these kids are _really_ self-sufficient."

A sly smile flickered onto the senior officer's face, and his subordinate gulped. "Tell you what—why don't you go meet them?"

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Whump! Crash! Double D looked up from his personal genome map, startled at the sounds. Loathe as he was to leave the task at hand, he detached himself from his work and started down the stairs to see what the uproar was about.

He noticed almost immediately upon entering the stairwell was the heart-attacking merger of grease and salt. _Popcorn?_ Double D groaned—this meant another hour's worth of work on his part cleaning up the grease. Therefore, entering the kitchen, he began to lecture. "Do you realize…" he trailed off, absorbing the sight before him.

Kevin, Ed, and Nazz were struggling to pull Jimmy from what seemed to be one of Mother's stainless steel kitchenware. Opposite them, Sarah, Rolf, Jonny, and Eddy, were yanking at the bowl, similarly to no avail. They were not succeeding in separating the two; Jimmy's teeth and hands seemed to be attracted like a magnet to the metallic pot.

Considering what had happened in the last six hours, Eddward supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Already, he had a very good idea bout what was going on… _Looks like I'll be sequencing Jimmy's next_, he thought excitedly. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. "Um, fellows…"

They ignored him, and so nervously Double D left the relative safety of the doorway and tentatively approached the epicenter of the chaos in his kitchen. He stood about an arm's length from the unfortunate sky-blue-shirted boy, and began again. "Erm, Jimmy… Perhaps you should try focusing on the attractive force stopping?"

Jimmy looked, if it was possible, even more distraught. "I'm _trying_, Double D!"

"Preaching to the choir, Double Dweeb!" an irate Kevin snapped. Edd sighed.

"What I meant was focus on the attractive force not _being _present any longer—maybe it will stop? Or perhaps if you focus on your want for it to not be there, it would have a positive result? Or…try focusing on the degree of attraction lessening and the repulsive force between you and the bowl increasing until the forces are equal in strength? Then you should be able to remove your hand."

Jimmy recognized what the older boy was suggesting, and nodded. Staring straight down, his eyes narrowed in concentration, and the two tugging parties were ripped apart a moment later, propelled in opposite directions at the sudden loss of tension.

Edd wasn't surprised that Jimmy succeeded—Sarah had unintentionally used the same tactic, as Jimmy very well knew, and Marie had confirmed that it could be used purposefully with enough application of will. However… "Which one did you use, Jimmy?"

Jimmy thought it over, phrasing the experience in his head before even attempting to describe it. "First I imagined it not being there, and wanted it to be that way really hard. Then I imagined the strengths of the… forces… as being like a see-saw, with bricks weighing down one side and no bricks on the other. I imagined half of the bricks moving to the other side of the see-saw, so that it balanced out. As I did that I focused really hard on it happening."

Edd nodded; it made sense. "Thank you, Jimmy." The wheels were turning in his head as he spoke. Jimmy really was a very artistic person, so it made sense that he would have the most success by thinking in mental images. But if how he thought was reflected in how he controlled his—_Not powers_, Edd corrected himself peremptorily; he was loathe to use that term, despite nothing else really fitting—abilities, then what did that say about how Sarah and Marie thought?

He put that thought on hold for the moment; this was not the time. "Erm, fellows, may I please have a hair sample from each of you? _Yes, _Sarah, I am _sure_ this is entirely relevant," he said, cutting off the loudmouth redhead's sharp-tongued reminder before it left her voice box. "I just need a larger range of samples to work with for comparison." Her mouth snapped shut, and Jimmy held out his hand, a couple of strands in his palm. "Oh, thank you Jimmy… Would you mind putting them in a plastic bag? I want to minimize risk of cross-contamination. Left drawer," he directed.

"Risk of _what_?" Jonny asked as Jimmy went to place the white-blonde strands in a clear plastic container. He paused suddenly, for a moment—listening to Plank—then shook his head. "Don't answer that. Double D, I am _bald_," Jonny pointed out, literally pointing to his extra-large noggin.

"Arm hair should work fine, Jonny," Double D assured.

"But what about _Plank_?" Double D froze, staring at the darker-haired kid, and attempted to compute an answer that wouldn't get him pegged as a "wood-hater". Within thirty seconds, he came up with one he thought was passable. "Well, Jonny, it is not really necessary for Plank to contribute. Only human DNA is necessary for the experiment, and furthermore, I neither have any wood to cross-reference Plank with, nor a clue as to how I would collect a specimen from Plank without harming him."

Jonny nodded, somewhat understanding—Plank doesn't have to give a sample; it is unnecessary; Double D doesn't know how to take a Plank sample; it's nothing personal—okay, it's fine. He brightened. "Oh, it's okay, Double D—Plank didn't want to do it anyway!" With that, he and Plank ventured over to collect a plastic sack, leaving a somewhat bewildered Double D standing there, wondering what exactly just happened.

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Lt. Michael Kubat of the Peach Creek Fire Department knocked cautiously on the door of the first intact building in the area, the lead weight of dread weighing down his hand's pounds. The grave sound echoed ominously off the wood.

Then, suddenly, with a creak, a sort kid in a yellow shirt opened up the door. Without even looking, he shouted, "Go away, Kankers, or we'll sick Rolf on you!"

"Excuse me." The kid froze, and bothered to look. First the kid's gaze landed on his belt, level with his eyes…and he glanced up. Yellow jacket, check. Black shirt, check. Kooky hat, check. "Double D! The fire department's here!" Kubat stared, taken aback by the child's nonchalant attitude, and probably would have stayed plastered to the floor he was standing on had the kid who opened the door groaned and said, "You might as well come in. This is gonna be a while…" He sounded genuinely irritated at something, but considerately held the door open as Kubat entered the building.

The room he entered was the living room…and it seemed to contain every child on his list of people to find but one. The children were staring at _him_, not unsurprised but not very concerned.

"He's new," a girl observed, hardly interested. With that, the children's attention diverted back to whatever they were doing before.

"Erm… I am here to ensure that all the current residents are accounted for. May I have your names?"

"Nazz."

"Kevin."

"I'm Jonny, and this is Plank!" Awkwardly, the firefighter pushed the board that the strangely enthusiastic bald-headed kid had shoved in his face out of the way.

"That's…nice, Jonny." Humoring the kid, he added, "Hello, Plank." His breath caught in his throat as the crayon smiley face seemed to glare at him.

"I'm Jimmy."

"Sarah."

"Eddy," the short kid who had opened the door said, "And this is Ed." He pointed at a yellow-skinned child who had come in carrying a massive sandwich, and now had his mouth full. "Double D's upstairs."

"Double D?" Mike asked skeptically, thinking of the double entrendere.

"Yeah—he's an Ed, but with two D's." Mike nodded, not quite getting it, but understanding the motive behind it—three Eds would get confusing after a while.

"I am Rolf, the Son of a Shepherd," a _blue_-haired kid said with a bow. "Rolf's family is known throughout this land for our customs and…"

"Torturing Nazis?" At this, Rolf smiled. "Ah! So you have heard of us! That is true, though that was not what Rolf was about to say. Rolf's family is better known for our skillful raising of livestock, but if you must ask…" Suddenly, the rest of the children, sans Jonny and Ed, started making remarks that he should leave. Realizing that the story was one to be avoided, Mike began to comply, when…

The sandwich-eating Ed, who had frozen at the sight of the fireman, suddenly broke out of his shock and emitted a resounding yell. "SARAH! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL!" Had his ears not been bleeding, Mike would have pitied the loudly frantic boy, who looked about ready to break into terrified tears as he plastered himself against the wall, arms holding protectively a little clay toy demon.

"Ed! I _didn't_!" a red-haired nine-year-old, presumably Sarah, countered.

Mark just stood there, very confused. He knew he should be suspicious about what ever Ed had accused Sarah of telling on him for, but…

"What did he ever do to you?" The older redhead, who was ignoring his sister's promises that she _hadn't_ been the one to squeal on his possession of the purple monster-thing, finally let his tear ducts start raining, pouring down on the chicken-butt-haired child who was trying to calm the siblings down.

…He didn't want to get into this matter. Thus, the fireman stood back beside the stairs as the spectacle's final acts played out.

Sarah, red-faced with rage, finally lost all control of her temper. "Nothing! I. DIDN'T. DO. ANYTHING!" Then she hit him. Before she could repeat the act, a yellow hand stopped her.

"Shush," Ed hissed, as if listening to something very quiet. "The yeast is rising." The girl's mouth dropped open, but, seemingly unusually for the violent redhead, no sound came out of it. All in the room could hear the seconds ticking as the sister stood there, her wrist trapped in the older brother's hand, I-cannot-believe-he-just-said-that expression writ on her face, and the older brother pondered something incomprehensible to the so-called 'sane' of the room.

Then realization hit the ditz, and he smiled widely. "Baron o' Beef Dip, you are safe!" he exulted, bouncing up and down with joy. "Bless your little napalm cylinders."

Mike's eyes bugged out, alarmed. _Say __**what**__? _What that kid was suggesting was that this thing was a veritable flamethrower! But, staunchly staying on his set course of action, he opted to say nothing, even though he knew that if his superiors ever found out about this negligence, his silence would come back to bite him in the a**. He justified that it was apparent this kid had obviously been in possession of this thing for a long while, and nothing had happened because of it before (hence why it was still in his possession). Now if only he could convince his superiors of that if they ever discovered this…

Suddenly, a male voice—obviously juvenile, based on its pitch—echoed from the hallway. "Is Ed drinking his Baron's refills again? Ed, you really should know better than that by now—think of your digestive tract!" Thus scolded the sock-headed child at the top landing, now straining under the weight of the numerous reams of paper he was trying to carry down the stairs.

Eddy snickered. "No," he responded, just as Ed assured, "Not in this glass, Double D."

"How'd it go, Double D?" the white-haired kid—Jimmy—asked, seemingly desperate to find out whatever _it _was. _What _is_ it?_

"The DNA analyses are ready—oh, hello," the sock-capped boy—Double D—digressed, realizing that the firefighter was still in the house. "I apologize; it really is quite hard to hear with the machines running and the soundproof walls." He looked down, and suddenly went from apologetic to cold. "Erm…"

"What?"

"Er…" the kid pointed. Mike looked down. "My shoes?"

"Yes! Dragging in filthy, nasty, contaminated soil!" Mike blinked. That was not what he had been expecting, though the children did not seem to have just been expecting it—they were laughing at _him_ for his lack of preparedness. "I…see. I cannot take it off; it's part of my uniform."

The kid sighed. "Just go stand in the entry. Eddy, why did you let him in without telling him to remove his shoes?" Mike glanced over, and noticed the pile of sneakers piled next to the door. _Oops…_ Suddenly, he felt kind of awkward, breaking a family's customs like that. From the sound of things, he was a practitioner of Shinto or something…

The shorter boy rolled his eyes. "You try telling firefighters to not do…whatever, Mr. _The Joys of Rules_."

Quickly making a head-count, Mike estimated that they were all present, and jotted it down in the paperwork. Then, while the neat-freak with his load of paper and the loud screechy kid with his argumentative nature escalated in their bickering, Lt. Kubat slipped out the door.

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"Well, how'd it go?" Michael Kubat glared at his company officer, wishing for nothing more than _him_ to undergo the same level of mental trauma he had been through in less than an hour!

Slyly, he smiled. "You know, Dan, you failed to warn me properly…" The senior officer's bushy eyebrows rose up above his large glasses; Michael had been positively _pummeled_ with the horror stories of those brats before going in—how _could_ he have failed to be prepared for the mental assault? "Those kids are positively _insane_!" He shoved the clipboard into his superior's hands.

Looking at the check sheet, Daniel returned to his usual morose self, coughing into his sleeve. "You missed three." He pointed to the three unchecked boxes. "The trailer park is that way. Enjoy!" He shoved the checklist back into his subordinate's arms.

The lieutenant groaned, looking about ready to cry.

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	8. Chapter VII—Acquainted with the Ed

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter VII: Acquainted with the Ed**

It was night. The sky outside was an inky black, speckled with silver glimmering stars. The purples and golds of twilight had long since past, faded away into nocturnal shadows. All through the cul-de-sac, there was no light; indeed, it seemed as if the whole of Peach Creek was caught in the grips of slumber. Likewise was the Clark household, where the lamps of which had long since been turned down and out with the settling of the black veil in the sky. On the single nightstand, an alarm clock brightly blazed the numerals of 1:23 in a vivid forest green into the murky night-gloom, single-handedly piercing the darkness on that side of the room. On the floor below it, three bedrolls were spread out, their inhabitants snuggled sleepily within. And yet, amidst the sounds of his friends' muffled snoring and heavy breathing in the throes of sleep, Eddward was still awake.

It wasn't the first time the thirteen-year-old had endured insomnia—often, when he hadn't had enough exercise that day, or the waking hours had been particularly stimulating and thoughts still floated around his head, bouncing off his cranium like ping-pong balls, he would find that any effort to sleep was all for naught. At such times, the best thing he could do was to wait it out while doing something constructive—such as building a bridge out of toothpicks—until his body could finally take his mind's constant prodding no more and collapsed from exhaustion. This being the case presently, he had abandoned his bed an hour earlier and picked his way over to his workstation. He was now sitting at his drafting table, where a single yellow light illuminated the sterile ivory workspace, staring down at the cause of his unrest.

It was a thick packet of white computer paper, striped with lines of tiny printed text, all black, and crossed with lines of light colored pencil and neat handwriting, which crouched before him like a menacing beast, the Theban Sphinx with her riddles and horrors… It was this ream that had engraved itself in the burgeoning scientist's mind like a phantom glowing in the darkness and made him tremble with unease.

Double D wished he could hate it, despise it—but what it contained was all about him, who, or what, _he_ was, and furthermore it was all true. Loathe as he was to admit it, it was all too true. And he could not hate the truth.

What it contained was not just him, his being, his genetic code inscribed on paper with ink—it also contained many footnotes, many markings his own pen had made that all added up to something…frightening.

It was pervasive, universal through all of his peers in the cul-de-sac, himself included.

What had been marked within his genes was the pattern that told him that he had early on in his life been changed at the molecular level.

He was a mutant.

Now, this would not nearly have been so concerning for the young scientist—rather, normally he would rejoice at such a fascinating quirk—but he had current events to consider. He was not alone in his change, for one—all but Rolf shared the same quirk as he. Had they been related, this might have been understandable, but they were from entirely different backgrounds. More puzzling still, it had all the indications of not being part of his original DNA sequence. It was too precise to be anything but man-made. Double D knew that there were some ways of doing such replacements on a mass scale, but in order to perform it in a single living being, let alone _eleven_…would require an _incredible_ amount of funding. All in all, the points all suggested that whatever was behind it must have been a part of a greater organization—a project on a massive scale.

Thus, the questions that had been running through his head that evening. Why would they do this? Who would provide the funding for such an expensive endeavor? What were they doing? The answers to the first two were unambiguous, little more than speculation. But the last one was painfully, frightfully clear: They were being experimented on, from an early age…and most likely their every move was being watched.

…And, now, all of a sudden, regardless of age, the mutation was making itself known.

And the manifestations did not match.

It was frightening, the ambiguity of it all. It was a breeding ground for paranoia and suspicion.

It seemed like something out of one of Ed's comic books: First Sarah, then Rolf, then Marie, then Jimmy… Who was next?

For all he knew, the next would be him. And all he could do was wait and see.

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Eddward awoke to the sounds of china clinking and the sizzling hiss of pancakes. He sniffed; the smell of cooking eggs and coffee permeated the air. He checked the clock: it was seven, an hour earlier than he had anticipated his waking, but still an hour after the time the alarm should have roused him…or at least his friends. They were sound asleep, so… Had the clock failed him?

_Come to think of it, why are Mother and Father still home? They usually have left by this hour… _Listening to the sounds below, he found he could make out five distinct footsteps, and remembered the events of the night before—how after the adults had returned home and relieved the firefighter that had been assigned 'babysitting' duty, of his charges, it was decided that the evacuated families could stay in the three houses that were undamaged, and thusly the refugee families were allotted between the houses. Considering that it was only his parents that left at such an unreasonable hour as five for work… _It must be the parents heading off to work, _he deduced. _Father must have left early._

That thought jolted him into wakefulness, and he rose to meet the day. He hoped that if he hurried, he might have a chance to spend time with at least one of his parents…

After showering and dressing he headed downstairs and entered the kitchen. Standing at the doorway, he could see only one adult still remained—his mother, who was cleaning the skillet at the sink. "Good morning, Mother. Do you need assistance?" he asked carefully.

She whipped her head around, startled, then smiled. "Not really—but your help would be much appreciated." Permission granted, Double D joined his mother in cleaning the kitchen.

As he started stacking the dishwasher, he asked her, "Mother, why…?" Edd broke off, trying to phrase his question so it didn't sound like an insult.

"Why am I not at work?" she finished for him, catching on. "Is it a crime to see my own son?" Her smile faded, and the lines of stress on her face deepened. "The higher-ups seem to think so." She shrugged—a habit she had picked up from one of the interns under her command. "Ah, well, as Einstein said, 'If I wanted to have an iota of freedom, I would have been a plumber'," she paraphrased. Then, her green eyes developed a steely, harshly-knowing glint, piercing trenchantly into Eddward's mind. "But that, Yosef, is not what is bothering you."

He fought the urge to wince at her usage of the familiar pet name; it only sickened him further after the suspicions he developed the night before—but in the way of all successful secrets, he could not confide in an unrelated party. Double D sighed; it was time for another bandage-truth. "My alarm clock didn't go off today," he admitted guiltily. "I believe it may have malfunctioned—otherwise, I would have been up an hour earlier."

"_Nonsense_! I made it myself!" his mother hissed, displeased as always at the insult of her skill. _Says she who cannot spell my name right, _Eddward thought sourly, then shrugged it off—there was a reason why his mother wasn't an English Major. "Your alarm at your clock's inactivity is unfounded, Eddward—when _I _checked on you this morning, I noticed your alarm had been set. Thusly, I turned disabled it so you and your friends could have a bit of a lie-in."

Double D stared—then winced at the admonishing look his mother gave him. "_Eddward_," she scolded, "After the day you kids had yesterday, I would have expected you to have allowed them, at least, a little more time to rest. I…" She froze in her rant, as the sock-capped boy muttered something about him not being able to get them up at a reasonable hour on a good day anyways… and that he had gotten enough sleep.

Her eyes narrowed. "Eddward, you were _asleep_ at your desk. You couldn't have been asleep before three. I would have expected you to recognize the necessity of getting an adequate amount of sleep!" she said hypocritically—never had the dark patches under her eyes been more apparent. Double D cringed as her tone softened. "The insomnia again?" To which he nodded, and she sighed. "I should have known. Next time, _Yosef_, please tell me or your father…or write it down. Maybe there is a pattern to this…"

"There is no pattern—I just couldn't stop thinking, Mother," Double D said, trying to smooth things over. Unfortunately, his inquisitively nosey mother had other plans than letting the matter drop.

"Sit down, Eddward," she said, motioning to the table. Double D hesitated—the plates had not yet been put away, after all—but, at the motioning 'go on' of her hand, complied, watching as she placed each glass away—then, the sunlight caught her golden locks, and the black-capped child looked away, reminded bitterly of what he had lost.

He stared at the wood grain as she sat down across from him as she sat down. For three minutes she sat patiently as he admired the woodgrain, then coughed, capturing his attention; he looked up.

She smiled coldly—much in the way she did when she won that lawsuit against Eddy's brother (Eddward really couldn't remember what happened to make them so mad, or how Eddy's brother was involved—except for the dodge balls)—"I see that you analyzed your own genome. Was it informative?"

_She knows._ That was all there was to it…and suddenly, it became all too apparent to Double D about what he was dealing with: another unknown. He didn't know who to trust. It froze the young inventor in the gut—never before had he ever distrusted—well, except, according to the other Eds, the Sticky-Note Hoax—his parents. And now here he was, faced with a major decision—how much should he tell?

She was looking at him; he had to say something. "It-it was fascinating, Mother. Really quite enlightening," he bluffed, and prayed to every god that he could name (all three hundred and sixty-six—one for every day of the year!) that she would believe him.

"Indeed, genetics are a fascinating subject. I assume you did the rest of the children on the block?" she asked him, confident in his reply.

Double D nodded. "That is so, Mother—not only them, but I did the three girls in the trailer park." After a moment, he added, "I would have done Eddy's brother, but there is no way I'd get near him again." As he expected, the mention provoked a distinct response from his mother—namely, her fingers dug into the table surface, and her face had turned to stone.

"Good." And then she was back to before. Double D silently cursed those same three-hundred-and-sixty-five gods (he omitted the God of the Hebrews/Christians/Muslims, lest his monotheistic ancestors start rolling in their graves) all the way to Erebus and back. "Did you find anything…interesting about them?"

_She is trying to find out how much I know…_ "Yes, Mother—the Kanker Sisters are actually half-siblings, Ed and Sarah are from Eastern Central Russia, and at least a fourth of the children in the area are of Irish descent," he listed, completing his lie. He bit his lip and hoped that this one would pass.

For a moment, she looked disappointed, and he dared hope—even though his heart panged at disappointing his hardworking parents—but then his hopes were dashed. "You are holding back, aren't you Eddward?" she murmured suspiciously. "Good. Don't tell me. Just…" she hesitated, looking around the kitchen, eying the corners of the room especially, then leaned forward over the wooden mesa. "_I'm not supposed to tell you this, hint anything of this, but… I have my doubts, serious doubts, about certain things, current modus operandi that are moving forward. I do not like some of the things that are planned on happening—and I know you would dislike them most of all…but I cannot warn you—I have been sworn to secrecy on what I have learned. My tongue has been stilled on the matters_," she whispered. Then, louder, "No, I cannot help you with the scavenger hunt…" She paused, as if Double D was whispering something to her. "But you already have the key. Read the signs, Yosef.You'll figure it out; you're a smart boy."

She returned to speaking under her breath, covering her mouth with her fists, expression that of one listening intently. "_Know what's coming—and keep in mind that the truth is not always the simplest one—sometimes the answer is the most seemingly complex option. Do not let scientific bias of likelihood get in the way…and be safe. Please_," she warned, _pleaded_. Then she snorted bitterly, and lifted her voice. "No, Eddward, I do _not_ know how to spell 'gravy' either. Don't ask me again."

Double D groaned, his forehead falling flat against the table—and just as quickly lifted it, before Mother's neurosis could manifest. _How did she find out about that?_ He certainly hoped his father lacked the eyes she had on the back of her head.

His mother laughed quietly, and said, "Enjoy your scavenger hunt." She got up, and headed to the side entryway—and froze.

Mother and son both watched as a strangely shiny fly buzzed from the room…under the crack in the side door…and reentered the outside world.

Suddenly, his mother's demeanor changed, and she relaxed. She checked her watch. "Eddward, go get your friends—they've slept in long enough."

Double D sensed that the constant, chronic mood-shifting that came upon his mother whenever she was stressed far beyond her normal breaking point was finally over, and outwardly he breathed a sigh of relief.

Inwardly, however, he was again asking himself—_what is going on?—_already mulling over this new development.

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After they had dressed and eaten, Double D's mother promptly kicked the kids out of the house. "Go watch the rebuilding or something," she said impatiently, "I've got work to do." With that, she wheeled around, slamming the screen door in their faces.

Eddy scowled up at the powder blue house. "Great. Now what?"

"I've got corn in my ears, Eddy," Ed quipped helpfully.

Eddy growled. "Yeah, what else is new?" He suddenly blinked—was that Jonny? He looked around, and saw that the kids were gathering on Jonny's front lawn—prime real estate for watching the rebuild. "Hey, kids! Come on!" he said, dashing off, leaving Edd and Sarah watching, disturbed and disgusted, as Ed pounded at the sides of his head, first cuffing one ear, and then the other, tongue twisted to the top of his head in concentration. Surprisingly, a couple of ears _did_ fall out of his head—proving that yes, indeed, he _had_ had corn in his ears.

"Mm, saved them!" he said, picking the ears and wolfing at them.

Sarah looked green, but Edd, faintly more used to his antics, just asked, "Please don't do that, Ed." They heard a grating shout, and looked up.

Eddy was waving his arms above his head, trying to get them to hurry up. "Hey! What's keeping ya?"

"Curse Ed's overly-tolerant digestive tract," Double D muttered as he, Sarah, and Ed ran to join the rest of the kids.

Thus, the Eds and Sarah joined the assembly of kids on Jonny's lawn n watching the well-practiced (courtesy of their efforts) Peach Creek Home Construction and Remodeling company's crews as they began yet another of their record-breaking high-speed repair projects.

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Only one person was not watching the builders in their work. Kevin was in Rolf's garage, fervently repairing his replacement bike, which he had saved from the soggy ruins of his house.

It was not his old, trusty Schwinn Stingray, which had been destroyed (by Nazz, of all people! Who knew she hated it that much?) on that fateful chase the previous summer, but it was still a very, very good replacement.

Nevertheless, his lesson had been learned—never take Nazz's niceness for granted because she _does_, in fact, have a temper and will destroy your most prized possessions at a moment's notice.

His musings followed along this trail of thought for some time as he ridded the bike of the gunk that had accumulated from being left in the wreckage overnight.

Then he felt _it_.

He had dropped the rag that he was using to clean between the spokes and gears and joints and seat and wheels, and was running his hand tenderly over the aluminum frame and handle bars when he felt of energy shock through him.

And suddenly, he knew _everything_ about his bike. Where it had been, who made it, how many of its brethren were in existence, what it could do, what he needed to do to further repair it… all the information came soaking in, rushing in like a torrential flashflood against parched ground.

Then the bike _itself _seemed to wake up, and sleepily blink and yawn inside Kevin's head, as if testing itself out and shaking itself out of the sleep it had been in. "Hello," the bike said calmly, inquisitively, benevolently, but only mildly interested. Kevin could sense its very nature— mildly curious and benign the bike was; it felt more mature—even mentoring—than he would have expected from a child's toy. But then again, it was a young adult's bike…maybe that was why it gave Kevin the impression of some sort of Zen swami. Despite being only a year old, it seemed like this crazy incident was not in the least bit strange for the device.

It was the shock of a lifetime for Kevin, though. With a "Whoa!" the startled mechanic leapt backwards into Rolf's garage wall, sending wall-mounted farm equipment everywhere. Kevin yelped in pain as the hard oak handle of a rake hit him squarely on the head.

"Kevin, are you all right? What are you doing to make the sounds of Wilfred locked in the tool-shed in Rolf's garage?" a familiar voice laced with accent called out from outside the garage door. Light leaked through the widening crack as the door opened and Rolf's head appeared near the concrete looking in.

Kevin groaned, picking himself up off the floor. "Fine, Rolf, just _fine_. Just cleaning my bike when I got a little startled, that's all."

Rolf quirked his unibrow, and countered, "Poppycock! The closest thing to that sound Rolf has ever heard was the labor cries of a three-legged yak!" While Kevin attempted futilely to clear his mind of that disturbing image, the blue-haired boy crawled under the door into the cavernous room— and yelped. "Ai-yii! Kevin, why do you make a pigsty out of Rolf's Father's workshop?" Growling, he set about picking up the wrenches, rakes, shovels, machetes, and meat hooks that now littered the floor.

Across the room from him, the bike sniggered. Kevin warily stared at it, and then tentatively asked Rolf, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what, Kevin?" the foreigner replied offhandedly, reassembling a set of bows and arrows in a leather duffel bag.

"Erm, you know, _that_… That sound.

"This sound, Kevin?" Rolf asked, shaking a small but heavy-looking box that had fallen off the shelf in Kevin's panic. "Need not worry, Kevin, it's only the inedible bones of Rolf's livestock."

On any other day, Kevin would have heaved. But today was not any other day. "No, it wasn't that…"

"Then what did you hear?"

"Erm…" Kevin froze. _They're going to think I'm crazy!_ But then he remembered that this was Rolf he was dealing with—surely he had all kinds of stories about this stuff, right? Thinking back to the time Rolf had been forcibly sent to the nurse to get lemon juice out of his eyes but had to be dragged there by Ed because he wouldn't go—something about chaos sprites from the depths of Valhalla—Kevin decided that if anybody would believe him it would be the superstitious immigrant. "…I think my bike just laughed at me…that's what I heard, anyway."

Rolf's head shot around and stared at the innocuous transportation mechanism. "Is that so?" he asked suspiciously, cold fire blazing in his eyes. He sniffed the air, and said paused. After a moment, he seemed to have come to a decision. "The demon bike of mockery?" The hostility was palpable. Kevin bit his lip…he had a bad feeling about this… "Well, then, Kevin," Rolf began amicably, "It appears to Rolf that your bike is possessed." At Kevin's confused, scared, but blank, stare, Rolf sighed exasperatedly. "Avenging evil spirits is Rolf's duty to his ancestors. You're bike is cursed. Therefore," Then, his voice sped up with bloodlusting excitement, making his thick accent difficult to weed through. "Rolf must destroy it."

With that, Rolf accelerated forward, lunging at the vehicle with a rock-solid, _huge_ tuna. Kevin's heart nearly stopped, the blood in his veins ran cold with fear. "Rolf, no!" he said, outstretching his hand, futilely grasping at the air, the image of the bike appearing to be at his fingertips. It appeared so close to the ends of his digits that he could _touch _it. But alas, it was a room away…

…And between him and it was a raging Rolf, stampeding toward it like a wooly rhino in a homicidal rage. Wonderful bike or not, there was _no_ way he was getting in the way of that. He just wished that that bike would move itself.

He—and Rolf—blinked, frozen in total surprise, when it _did_.

"I told it to do that," Kevin interjected quickly before He-Who-Sees-Demons could kill the poor device currently quivering beside the wall with that fish-from-the-deepest-bowels-of-watery-hell he was wielding. Rolf quirked his eyebrow at this, and quickly retreated, scurrying to Kevin's side, and joined him in puzzling over what had just happened.

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"This is boring," Eddy moaned after a half hour of watching the crews labor over their ruined houses. Beside him, Jonny readily agreed, followed by most of the others.

Their bored, lazy state did not last much longer.

"Hey, Double Dork!" The kids knew exactly who was speaking, but looked anyways, just for a diversion from the monotony. Kevin and Rolf were running over to them—well, Rolf was running, anyways; Kevin was riding his newly-restored bike. The interest in any relief from boredom morphed into legitimate curiosity when the bike rider screed to a stop by Double D, who had been watching clouds.

"Alright, Double D," Kevin said bluntly, "What's going on?" Double D jerked upright, leaving a faint impression in the grass he had been sprawled back on, and stared at the jock. _Him now?_

The red-capped kid stomped on his foot. "Yesterday you said you had an idea; you didn't tell us. So, what is it?"

Eddward noted the fear in Kevin's face—he didn't just look uncomfortable in his own skin, but terrified as though he was being eaten alive. A stroke of pity rushed through the brainy Ed; he really should have told them, but he had not wanted to cause undue panic prematurely, especially with the fire brigade in the cul-de-sac.

Kevin was making up for it now. He winced as he felt tingling in his foot beyond just the pain at the pressure point. "Please release my foot, Kevin; you are cutting off the circulation." Grunting, the football captain lifted his foot from Double D's shin, and the research enthusiast sighed in relief, shaking out the bloodless limb to get the blood flowing. "Thank you, Kevin," he said. The jock rolled his eyes, irritated that the nerd wouldn't get on with it. Sensing the irritation coming from the others listening in, the Edboy sighed. "Yes, I do have a hypothesis, and I believe I am correct in it. I apologize for the inconvenience, Kevin et al; I had only neglected to illuminate you on the matter because I had not wanted to cause any of you undue panic, should I have turned out to be incorrect. But it seems that indeed my suspicion was correct, hence, I have no choice. I will tell you all…but since it would be preferable to get this covered in one go, we must all be present…and preferably in a more private location."

The kids all stared at him. "But we're all here, Double D," Nazz said.

Edd momentarily blushed, but shook his head. Looking at the rest of the kids, he bit his lip. _They are_ not _going to like this…_ "No, Nazz. We are not all here. Three people are missing—it is essential, unfortunately, that they be present, since one of their number has already acted as key evidence towards my findings." He paused to let the concept sink in, self-consciously fiddling with a blade of grass. He could feel the cogs in their brains turning—it was not hard to figure out the trio he was suggesting be present. There were only three not assembled on Jonny's lawn that were here yesterday.

_Three…two…one…_ "Double D, you're crazy." No other words were said; the others shared Eddy's sentiments exactly.

Double D picked himself up off the lawn, brushing off the blades of grass clinging to him like photosynthetic lint. "You know what they say, Eddy—there is only a fine line between genius and insanity."

"Then you crossed it," Sarah viciously countered, and Double D flinched—they had no idea how true that seemed to be at times…

"Maybe so, Sarah," he said tiredly. "Nevertheless, if you want to find out, I will see you all at the swimming hole—with the Kankers. As for me, I will be retrieving the supporting evidence." He trotted off, taking refuge in his audacity to get away before the cork on Kevin's top could erupt and simmering Sarah could boil over.

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The Kanker sisters had risen bright and early, roused by their mother's blow-horn as she headed off to work. Marie, who had worked past midnight to get the caulking on the pipe dried so they could use the bathroom in the morning, had sluggishly stumbled down the stairs in a relative (for a drunkard) beeline to the coffee pot.

Meanwhile, May was the first in to the bathroom, with Lee hot on her heels. When the door had slammed in her face, Lee scowled, and used the all-powerful family swordfish trophy to rip the door off its hinges, firmly intent on kicking the baby of the family out to take what is rightfully hers—first dibs on the john.

She stopped cold when she saw that her sister was not doing what she had expected her to be doing—staring at the mirror, struck with horror as always at the inevitably disheveled state of her hair—but staring at the toilet, struck with an entirely different kind of horror—one partly disturbed, partly confused, and as bewildered as Lee had ever seen her.

Dreading what she would find, Lee peeked at the object of her sister's transfixion and, for a time, joined her in the trance-like state.

Then she felt a slight tickling sound, tickling, itching, at the back of her throat. She coughed, breaking herself out of the frozen state of shock. As the world zoomed back to life for her, Lee glanced around the room, so quickly she almost got whiplash, and observed in slight panic that there were _more_ of them, at least one plastered on every surface or object in the bathroom, on the tile and the medicine cabinet and on the walls and the bathroom and heck, on the ceiling!

In spite of the annoyance for having to clean it all (though really, she could make Marie do it—it was her fault, after all), she still felt a slight reverent awe at his audacity—wasn't this like marking his territory or something? _Hm, looks like Marie's boyfriend has some backbone after all…_

Her eyes bolted open, realizing that her subconscious had just given her the culprit for this travesty. Taking a deep breath, she howled, the soundwave blasting May off her feet and out of her trance, "Oy! Marie! You're boyfriend _Labeled_ the _toilet_!"

Marie didn't respond—she didn't even hear her elder sister; she was still groggily staring at the coffee pot now, willing for the next pot of wonderfully caffeine-rich liquid to come to a boil while nodding off into her sixth cup of coffee.

However, the birds in the woods outside heard far better, and fled from their perches into the glowing coral sky as the goliath cry pierced the pinkish-red morning dawn.

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	9. Chapter VIII—Hightail Ed

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Notes for Reviewers:**

_**Spindash:**_ Thanks for the heads up, and thank you for your critique. I try to make the speaker at least _deducible_, but, alas, I am human—these things do happen. I'll try to keep your words in mind while writing the next round of dialogue. (p.s. If writing reviews for this fic is difficult for the reasons you listed—thanks, btw!—how about some speculation? I would like to see if the foreshadowing and hints I've planted are getting through.)

_**Helena: **_Hello, again! I am glad to see you liked that last bit so much; it's one of my favorite bits, too. __ After the more serious parts of the chapter, it just seemed so necessary to lighten the mood.

And about Kevin's powers—well, I had a lot of trouble with him, too. I tried to give _all_ my characters powers based on traits and abilities previously indicated in canon, but for Kevin, nothing ever _really_ stood out in the series, but for plot's sake he had to have some sort of power. So, I just went with what I had. Plot-relevant requirements for his powers, originality, and some snippets indicating standout traits in his personality: 1) He posesses a love of anything with wheels, be it bikes, motorscooters, or unicycles, and knows how they work, for the most part. 2) Conscientious leadership of _beings capable of thought_, 3) A protective streak concerning the 'innocent', and a dislike of injustice, treatment of the Eds not withstanding, 4) He (according to the series bible) watches too much of Sixty Minutes—he gathers information. This fits well with his hinted propensity for… 5) Paranoia, especially of the Eds and Eddy's brother. 6) He is a capable strategist. (He is a football captain. While I am not into sports (unless you call the various styles of Celtic Dances sports—which they are, in their native lands), I do know that that position takes a keen mind with a healthy capacity for strategy. Among those abilities, the gathering and processing of relevant information from the large amount of data displayed by the informants, and strategy and command, were displayed in a more or less 'surreal' context in the Invaded episode—the closest thing in the EE&E canon to the situation these kids are now in). Given those things, I came up with an inventory that I hope will be, if not the most _fitting_ for his personality, then at least understandable for how his thought processes seem to work, and, further, one I feel will be most useful for his role in the story and among the kids. What those two things, the power palette and the plot position, are I will not say, because I already am toeing the spoiler threshold, but I hope that, in spite of my vagueness, you might see where Kevin's powers are coming from through the equation I used. The second overall reasoning I used for deciding Kevin's powers was drama. Given that he is a kind of 'Big Brother' figure to some of the Kids, and is inherently suspicious of those whom he sees as troublemakers or walking disturbances of the peace, I cannot help also being reminded a bit of the Big Brother concept—given the tools to be such, what would happen? I figure that for Kevin, his leading lesson will be a matter not of 'with great power comes great responsibility' but 'with great power comes _the_ great responsibility—to not take things too far'. What those 'things' are, I will leave to your imagination for the time being. Just know that it is an issue that will be resolved with character growth, but might never be shown 'onpage'. Just to reiterate, you are, ultimately, correct: the powers are not compatible with Kevin, and they're not supposed to be, because for Kevin I was more focused on trying to make the powers compatible with the _traits_ of Kevin, and certain matters concerning Kevin that I cannot yet reveal.

**Notes for Readers: **Hello, all. It's been busy recently. I've just become a fully-inaugurated student at my here-unnamed university, finished the rough content for the next two chapters, and celebrated my commuter status by being informed that the cabinets (we're undergoing a kitchen remodel) are arriving this coming Tuesday—and, as usual, I'm going to be providing the usual service demanded of me by my family: slave labor. 0.0' (Even though they're not even letting me get near the fun part—the cabinets, because they've called some team in, and they've denied me the pleasure of demolishing that upper cabinet over the island I've hit my head on for half of my life. No gratitude whatsoever. Because guess WHO is going to be stuck with the task of cleanup duty? Jerks.) I suppose as there is no rest for the weary nor the wicked, and evil never sleeps, then there is no slacking off for the scholarly. And as one of my classes is Intro to Architecture, there is no excuse for me to refuse some more of the great life-long hands-on architectural lesson that is called living in this house. I can only hope that my mother/slavedriver will be more merciful come midterms; I have about one per month. As it is, I'm glad to be posting this, not just because it is reasonably on schedule, but because proofing and posting this story has actually turned out to be therapeutic—and with my rising stress level, I need whatever help I can get. So, here's to the first week of college, and last of the fully pre-written chapters!

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter VIII: Hightail Ed**

Eddy tentatively rapped at the trailer door, twitching at the echoing sound of each knock. He glanced over his shoulders, to the bushes at the edge of the woods. He could not see them—the cowards were hiding behind the hedge—but he knew they were there. At least out there, somewhere among the trees and shrubs, he had Jonny backing him up—the one kid who might be able to help him get out of this mess.

Then again, Eddy didn't want to do this anyway! It was their idea. Not his—he would never volunteer to sacrifice himself to the Kankers! He scanned the clearing, assessing the escape routes—which would get him to safety the quickest? (_Or get him away from the kids bent on human sacrifice_, his cynical side added helpfully.)

None for the latter; he was out in the open. And besides, it was the only way to get answers out of Double D, apparently—what was up with that guy? He had looked _sick_ at the thought of telling them! The last time he had had that look, he had been trying to find a way to tell Rolf that they had found his runaway chicken—eaten by a fox. Good riddance, in Eddy's mind, but not in Ed and Edd's.

And thus, his day had gone from boring to nightmare fuel. After Double D's sadistic request, the kids had decided that the only way to get the information was to comply—even if they did steal his data, fat chance that they would be able to interpret it. So, they had forced him to play scapegoat for them. Sure, they _said_ they had some reasons, such as "They like you"—courtesy of Jimmy—and Nazz's "You're fast" contribution that made him turn red in embarrassment, and Sarah's "you're good at these kinds of things", while looking pointedly at her brother, giving Eddy an example of who should at _all_ costs not do this. Knowing his friend unfortunately well, Eddy had grumbled and accepted defeat, and they had shoved him off to meet his doom.

Oddly, though, nobody was answering, and he had been knocking for five minutes already! "Okay, nobody's home," he concluded, giving up and hopping off the porch.

Just then, his high hopes were dashed. "Fine, _dammit_! I'll get it!" a screeching voice snarled out from the depths of the trailer, and the trailer itself resounded with stomping footsteps. The screen door swung open, barely missing Eddy's head.

Eddy stood frozen, like a deer in the headlights, surprised not only that he wasn't getting kissed on sight but terrified at the sight of who had opened the door. Marie Kanker was glaring dangerously at him with heavy, sleep-shadowed eyes. Irritably, she grumbled, "What do _you_ want?" Just then, Eddy noticed that her face and blue hair tips drenched brown with coffee. He snorted. The glare on her visage intensified, conveying more than words ever could.

"Man, what happened to _you_?" He was asking for trouble, but he couldn't help it. He _had_ to milk this for all its worth—it was in his blood!

"_You_ happened," she enunciated venomously. "You startled me; I snorted into my coffee when the doorbell rang."

Eddy winced in sympathy, suddenly understanding—hot liquids were _never_ meant to meet human skin. Then, he realized, "You drink coffee?" The only time he had tried that bitter liquid, he had spat it right out. For anyone under the age of eighteen to drink it was, in Eddy's eyes, extraordinary.

Marie rolled her eyes, and took a gulp from her cup, affirming Eddy's deductions. "Yeah, yeah—what did you come here for anyway?" Before Eddy could answer, she shouted into the cavernous vehicle: "Hey, Lee! Your boyfriend's here!"

An echoing "FINE! I'm coming down!" boomed out from within. Seconds later, a ginger and a tawny head joined the blue in the doorway. "What's this?" Marie yawned and, seemingly deciding that Lee could take over, retreated back into the kitchen—and the coffeemaker.

"Erm…" He stuttered, his blood running cold as he heard from behind him the giggles and cries of the kids silently breaking up and scattering through the brush, meandering their ways to the swimming hole. They were abandoning him, now that he was in the thick of things, the jerks! As the noise at last settled down into just the gentle breeze rustling the golden tree branches and shrubs he regained his voice. "Double D says that he's got the DNA tests back, and he needs you at the swimming hole as well for some reason…yeah."

Lee sounded surprised. "Already? Good service." Her nod matched the approving tones of her voice.

"The _swimming_ hole?" May asked, surprised.

"…yeah. Not my idea."

"When?"

Eddy winced; he had been dreading this. "Er…ten minutes," he mumbled.

"I can't hear you," Lee prompted in a sing-song voice.

Eddy snapped. "I said, _ten_!" Clamping is mouth shut in fear, he backed out of range as Marie and May saved him from further Kanker retribution with their squabble over who got to use the shower first.

Lee gruffly said "We'll be there" before slamming the door in his face, intent on breaking up the catfight. "Hey!" Eddy could hear her bark. "_I'm_ in charge; I get to use the shower first!"

Taking a deep breath, Eddy backed away to a seemingly safe distance. Then, he turned around and bolted.

It wasn't as if the Kankers were going to hurt him—they had significantly slackened off after the "Brother" incident due to their conclusion that he had suffered enough already—but the unpleasant memories surrounding the trailer park and that particular trio of half-sisters were just too strong and fresh in his mind.

For some reason, he ran faster than he ever had before in his life. Eddy realized he didn't even _know_ how fast he was going, but feeling that he was still going at no more than a light jog, he sped up. Around him, the world blurred. Tree melded into tree, but the fact that he was practically running blind through woods didn't faze him—he just owed it all to reflexes that he was able to dodge the massive oaks, spruces, cypresses, and whoever knows what else, and kept going. As he blazed along the ground, he felt a tremendous energy welling up from within him, making his feet light and his body buoyant. Anything Double D said about things speeding up becoming heavier vanished from Eddy's mind; he felt as though he was _flying_ along the ground! He felt as though he could keep running forever. It was a heady experience.

Little did he know, lost in the exhilaration of the experience, that though only less than a minute had passed since he left the trailer park, he was now coming upon the swimming hole.

Then it all came to an end, as he hit _something_, and with a loud _CRACK _was sent careening backwards into the base of a tree. Shaking the dust from the clearing floor from his hair, he looked up to see how in the world he hit a brick wall…or whatever. Wincing at the pain his face was emanating, he stared at what he saw.

There was no brick wall. Instead, in the spot where Eddy had crashed into, on the other side of the clearing by the swimming hole, was an equally astonished Edd. Pale-faced, the latter shakily queried, "Did I just _do_ that?" Then, he gasped. "Eddy! Are you all right?"

_/∙∙∙/∙∙–/–∙∙/–∙∙/∙/–∙/∙–∙∙/–∙––/–∙∙∙/∙/∙–∙–/–––/––/∙∙/–∙/––∙/∙∙∙/–/∙–/–/∙∙/–––/–∙/∙–/∙–∙/–∙––/––∙∙––/–/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–/∙––––∙/∙∙∙/∙––/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–/––∙/∙/–/∙∙∙/–∙––/–––/∙∙–/_

"_Whoa."_

"_Talk about two bullets hitting each other head on, huh, Plank?"_

"_Eep! Sarah, blood!"_

Suddenly, Eddy's situational awareness caught up with him, and he realized that the kids were staring at him, and Ed was helping him up.

"You're nose is bleeding, Eddy," Ed pointed out, handing him a filthy handkerchief that smelled like his jacket. Ignoring the dirt, the stench, and the stains, Eddy lifted the rag to his nose and blotted. He glanced down at it, and saw a stream of red liquid trailing down his shirt. _Huh, so it is,_ he thought offhandedly, going into shock.

"Hold it right there, Mister!" a sharp voice barked, as Double D ran up. "…Nazz," he panted; aside from himself, Double D would only entrust the most sane of the Kids with such a task. "Apply pressure on Eddy's nose. We need to staunch the bleeding." With no further preamble, Double D started emptying his pockets, preparing to assault the wounded with bandages. Eddy winced at the thought; good medic though that kid was, his friend was a sadist with those things.

Eddy nearly panicked when Nazz pressed the hideous handkerchief against his face. He wanted to scream—and not just because his throbbing nose had suddenly taken a painful turn for the worst… He yelped. Worriedly, Nazz called out to Double D. "Am I doing this right?" _She __hasn't _done_ this before?_ Even as Eddy began to panic, he was preempted in his protesting by some…_thing_ soothing the pain.

The son of a surgeon glanced over, and sighed. "Nazz, Eddy's nose is not meant to be bent that way." He set the brace he had been constructing down on his briefcase and scurried over. "I'll take over from here, Nazz. Sanitary wipes are by the files. Thank you." He motioned his hand towards the briefcase. Nazz scowled at the abnormally blunt (for Double D) dismissal, but, grimacing at the sight of Eddy's blood covering her hands, complied.

Edd got down to business, and started muttering as he peeled the cloth off Eddy's face. Eddy hissed as the thin cloth was painfully peeled off like a Stick-Aid off a not-yet healed wound. "I swear, if she has permanently disfigured the…" He trailed off into a stunned silence.

Confused at the great mumbler's sudden stop, Eddy "Double D, wha…?" He was cut off by a mirror shoved into his face.

"Eddy, _look!_" Given that the mirror was almost literally in his face, Eddy really had no choice in the matter. What he saw, however, made his jaw drop. Behind the thick dark brown crust running down his visage, Eddy could make out bruises fading and the fresh red trickling to a stop. His vision was suddenly obstructed as Edd tweaked and braced his nose back into its usual shape.

"Hey Eddy!" Ed yelled, bounding up from wherever he had been. "You don't look like you got a pig-nose anymore!" He leaned over Edd's shoulder, extending an index finger towards the wound. "Can I touch it?"

Double D swatted the offending hand away. "He's healing, Ed. You may cause an infection!"

Ed nodded. "Like an alien pathogen from the mutant zombie planet Argos III?" Eddy snickered and Double D sighed exasperatedly. The yellow-skinned kid blinked up at the sky, oblivious of their reactions. "Boy, Eddy sure was fast, huh, Double D?"

At this, Edd scowled. "Indeed," he said coldly, glaring at Eddy and blotting extra disinfectant onto his nose with a cotton ball. Eddy glared back, biting back a yelp at the stinging pain. Double D quickly cleaned up the dried blood and backed off, packing away his assorted medical supplies, and resumed his lecture.

"Eddy, what were you thinking? You were reaching speeds of at least one-hundred-and-ninety miles per hour, I'll wager! Had you crashed into something—or some_one_—going at that speed, you would have _killed_ him!" Before Eddy could ask what the brainiac meant by that, Ed unwittingly blurted out the answer for him.

"Faster than a speeding bullet, Eddy!" _A bullet._ Eddy's blood ran cold. He realized what he was, what he had been so close to becoming. _A human projectile. A human gun. Or worse._ Ed's innocent remark drove home just _what_ had almost happened: He had nearly killed one of his best friends! Had Double D not thrown up that shield… _Shit_.

"_Eddy_!" Eddy blinked. Had he said that out-loud? _Double shit, then._

He shuffled his feet—how could one apologize to the one whom he almost accidentally killed? "Erm…Sorry." Edd blinked, forgiving him his atrocious language. "I'll…I'll be careful." On both matters.

Ed and Edd smiled. "And so will we, Eddy," the latter promised. "Let this be a lesson to us all." The gently accepting look on his face, though marred with worry, informed Eddy that all was forgiven. Eddy was relieved.

/–∙∙∙/∙/∙––/∙∙/∙∙∙/∙/∙––/∙∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙∙∙/∙––∙/∙/∙/–∙∙/–∙–∙–∙/–∙∙–∙/∙–/∙∙–∙/–––/–––/∙–∙∙/∙–/–/∙∙–∙/–––/∙–∙/–/–∙––/∙∙/∙∙∙/∙–/∙∙–∙/–––/–––/∙–∙∙/∙∙/–∙/–∙∙/∙/∙/–∙∙/∙–∙–∙–/


	10. Chapter IX—State of the Ed

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Reader & Reviewer Alert:** The author's note has been moved to the bottom.

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter IX: State of the Ed**

Autumnal winds rustled treetops of reds and yellows and browns, carrying with them the cold of the chilly frost of first dawn that still bit the midmorning air with icy teeth. Amidst the yellowing greens and golds and orange-hued boughs, a redhead of yet a brighter pumpkin-colour made her way through the trees.

There was a bitter crack as a twig snapped and broke underfoot, echoing through the semi-silence of plant matter rustling and crumbling into the leaf litter. Another rasping sound was rising, and Lee's ears picked up on it in full. She glanced around and scowled; May was trying to steal Marie's coffee again. She growled, and her two bickering siblings suddenly ceased in their squabble, looking up into her stony gaze. Lee capitalized on the brief respite to make her point clear. "May, leave Marie's coffee alone. If you wanted coffee, you should've brought you're own." Lee whipped around and began walking down the trail again.

For a few precious seconds, there was silence. Then…

Marie, sensing victory, stuck her tongue out at May. May whined, complaining, "Marie's been hogging the coffeemaker all morning!"

"Should've done it while she was in the shower, then!" Marie retorted.

"Lee was using it!" The mentioned sibling gritted her teeth; while May's caffeine deficiency was not her problem, the migraine she was accumulating _was_.

Finally, Lee couldn't take it anymore, and froze. The younger sisters, directly behind Lee, crashed into her in a three-Kanker pileup. Somehow, only Lee remained standing—she whirled around, glaring into their faces. Dominance reinforced by her rising Kanker-Commando Fury™, she spat-howled into their faces, "You two! SHUT. UP." The cumulating catfight stopped in its tracks. Lee pointed ahead of her, reminding the combatants of where they were. "We're here girls. Put on your game faces; we've got a job to do…" With that, Lee blazed through the thicket and scrub into the clearing of the swimming hole.

∙–/–∙∙/∙–∙/∙∙–/––/––∙∙––/∙–/–∙∙/∙–∙/∙∙–/––/–∙–∙––/

All was quiet on the sands between the still swimming hole shore and the straggly tree-line bushes, all but for the raspling of leaves fighting to recover in the dry autumn winds, paradoxically caught in the brief window of time after the sweltering summer heat has done its worse wilting but before the crisp breezes whispered of harsh winter, heralding the time when the scaly leaves would turn to brown and abandon their grey homesteads in hectic flight of snow. Some oblivious, some aware, some _betting_, even, on the ongoing race above their heads, there they sat, the Cul-de-sac Nine, in a loose ring on assorted rocks and dunes, patiently awaiting the aforementioned trio's arrival.

…'Patient?' Oh, _there's_ a riot…

"So…when were the Kankers supposed to be here?" Kevin asked, irritated at the unrelenting delays. Sarah looked likewise murderous; she, more than anyone, wanted answers NOW. She had literally waited twenty-four hours for them, after all! All the Kids were thinking pretty much on the same lines as she: _Worst service __**ever**__._

"Five minutes ago, Kevin," Edd carefully replied, checking his watch. Pocketing the priceless antique timepiece, an heirloom from his mother's grandfather, he murmured, "I wonder where they could be…" Wilting under the glares shot his way at the prospect of waiting any longer, the conflict-loathing boy knew he had to pacify them somehow lest he be ripped to shreds. and reluctantly promised them, "If they are not here within the next few minutes, I will start without them." He grimaced; they did not look appeased…

Suddenly, a thick-soled shoe broke through the bush behind Jimmy, who jumped. "We're here," announced the eldest of the missing siblings in a business-like tone, as the younger two followed her out into the clearing in procession.

Immediately, an irritated voice burst out, "What took you?" Sarah, for the moment setting aside her frustration in favor of good sense, cringed under the lead Kanker's glare; then, with a sigh of relief when it shifted from her to the guy who had scheduled this meeting, she returned to what at present appeared to be her default setting: a veritable furnace, barely controlled as is, whose internal heat and pressure was rapidly mounting past the conditions of structural integrity.

Overlooking the mounting pressure accumulating within the riling redhead's tiny frame, Lee Kanker caustically addressed the "Next time, warn us a _reasonable_ time before," Lee addressed, harshly glaring at Double D; she and roughly pushed Jonny into Sarah and sat down, her sisters following suit. Jonny, opting to _not_ take back his position, plastered himself to Nazz, who flipped him on the ground with nigh-professional ease. Jonny yelped, waking the kids out of the fearful stupor. The kids glanced uneasily between one another, none wanting to be the one to provoke the dangerous newcomers' wrath.

"Right," Kevin began, taking control of the situation before the extremely distraction-prone lot could find something else to divert their focus from the task at hand. "So we're all here. Now…" The football captain's voice, already ignored by the kids, was cut off by a screech.

"I want **answers**, and** I want them NOW**!" Sarah's yell shattered the silence into innumerable miniscule pieces. The cumulative countenances of the rest of the Kids, all in solemn agreement, made it quite clear that there was no avoiding the grizzly task for the sock-headed Edd. It was time.

∙∙–∙/∙/∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/∙–∙∙/–∙∙/–/–––/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/∙∙–∙/∙∙/∙–∙/∙/

Edd ducked his head, still sensing the piercing stares of the assembly, and scrutinized the particles of sand at his feet, dreading the revelation he would have to divulge. Despite that he had prepared for this since he had made the discovery, the whole situation did not sit well with him. It was a moral dilemma at its core; who was he to tell his fellows that the origins of the lives they had led were in so many ways tantamount to a lie?

Perhaps he was overly dramatizing the situation a bit…No, he couldn't be. The fact that they were being _experimented on _alone was an indicator of foul play; experimentation without the informed consent of the subject wasn't merely _unethical_ but **entirely** against the precedent set by Title 10, United States Code, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 49, Section 980, among others such legal bindings. However, such legal barriers could be bypassed through the acquisition of _parental consent…_ and that prospect was worrisome at best; how much did the parents know—how deeply are they involved in this? And, given that, how would that strain some of their already tenuous parent-child relationships? Additionally, what his mother had said that morning implied that the very act of knowing about the experiment's existence was in itself highly incriminating and dangerous. With that thought, he sincerely hoped that the communication disruptors he had set up on his person would be enough to prevent any word of this conversation from getting through if one of them were bugged; they were in hot water enough as it is.

Nevertheless, he had to give them an explanation; they had as much of a right to know as he did, and he was the only one who could give them the answers they desired—not that they would be happy with them, once they were told. Then a sly thought occurred to him. _They don't have to be told _everything_, now do they?_ He winced at the implications of dishonesty inherent in that option. But, there was of course a remedy to that._ …At least, until I have more tangible proof of such allegations than mere inductive reasoning._ Course determined, he took a deep breath and looked up into the intent faces of the others, for once fiercely focused and ready to glean whatever he could tell them.

First things first. Flinching under the pressure, he opened the briefcase and pulled out a manila folder. Picking several sheets from the stack, he politely requested, "Nazz, would you be so kind as to pass these out?", remembering the many times in class the girl had been called upon by teachers to distribute documents. The blonde obliged, efficiently passing the pages out among the scattered children as Double D explained, "I created this report yesterday but was unable to disperse the copies on account of the presence of unknown parties."

Eddy quietly chuckled to himself, remembering the new firefighter's unfortunate interaction with the kids; Double D pointedly opted to ignore it in favor of explaining the handouts. "These reports contain the hard evidence I gathered yesterday, along with some additional definitions. I am including this because most of us only know a part of the story, I felt it prudent to preempt any misunderstandings and ensure everyone is properly informed so I don't have to reiterate irrefutable evidence already known to the majority." He remained quiet for about five minutes, giving the Kids and Kankers time to check their facts against the information provided. A few actually looked through the packet; most of the reports were left unopened in their holders' hands.

"Get _on_ with it," Sarah prompted growlishly. The other Kids seemed to be sharing the same thought. They were supposed to be getting _answers_, not a _lecture_! Eddy and Ed, far more used to their longtime friend's incorrigible verbosity, had slipped into their usual 'Endure Double D's Yammering' Modes—zoning into some money-filled happy place and easily finding something to distract him, respectively.

Eddward gulped "Of course, Sarah—that is what I had in mind when I created these," he placated. "As reparation for your inconvenience, the answer to your question: as I had thought, the incidents we have experienced are indeed genetically linked—there is no remedy." Sarah and Jimmy sighed—Sarah out of disappointment, hopes dashed; Jimmy out of relief; there would be no further experimentation of the Science Fiction variety. "At least, none that are not highly obvious and with a higher potential to only aggravate our already tampered genomes—of which I will now explain.

"What I have discovered by examining our DNA is that there is a pattern of genes identical in each of us—sans Rolf, who shows a similar but distinct pattern—that do not seem to have any precedent in the spectrum of human genotypes. While it is possible that a natural virus could have taken place through a viral vector _in vivo_, natural retrograde viruses—as far as I know, the most likely culprit—can only integrate with _one _part of the genome, at least from what I have been told—whereas several parts of our original cellular genomes have been supplanted by apparently foreign DNA. The likelihood of _more_ than one such virus infecting each of us at a time before none of us could remember—as I would assume to be the case—is highly unlikely…at least, for the same series of viruses.

"Also, keep in mind that while it is possible that some sort of plague _may_ have affected the older portions of our number, it would have to have been a nationwide—or even worldwide—epidemic, which I should have found records of in my search. Ergo, this is an isolated incident, and yet, at the time when this could have happened—when none of us would be capable of remembering—none of us were in the same area, which nullifies the most likely explanation, a series of isolated retroviruses affecting each of us, which would have been understandable through proximity.

"Given that, the next most likely—god forbid—explanation is that we were affected on this most base level by _human_ hands—that is, humans deliberately constructed and introduced a viral vector, and a helper virus, into our systems—which _is_ entirely possible, in spite of our geographical distance at the time. However, I have several problems with this explanation, which nonetheless is still the most probable solution—and the conclusions I have drawn from this are quite…disturbing." His face skewed up at the thought; relating these thoughts aloud had driven home to him just how bizarre this whole predicament was.

Picking up an out-of-place _munch-munch_ing sound, he looked up from his hands, and, following it to beside him, he realized… _How did Eddy get the popcorn?_ He certainly hadn't had it when he arrived! Eddward pushed that question out of his mind—he had long learned it was better not to question such odd incidents (even though ever since the 'Bully D' incident, he had wondered why Eddy wouldn't just do a hot dog stand scam). Nevertheless, perhaps it was time that he _started_ to pay attention to such events… But this wasn't getting the necessary information out to the masses, now was it?

Thought tirade broken, he returned to his original line of speech. "Firstly, a viral vector remains by far the most likely agent of the substitute DNA strands. However, the main counterpoint is that it is a _very_ new technology—the rudiments of the science were barely a couple of decades old at the time when the first of us could have been infected virus; and the first successful harnessing _of _the technique occurred within a decade of when I estimate the first infection should have happened. Ergo, this was far ahead of its time—too far, I might add. Even today the techniques involved are still being honed, and mishaps in experimental treatments occur all the time.

"_That_ is what our case is, if I am correct—an experiment, made even _more_ experimental given the youth of the technique. What's more is that, somehow, we, the subjects of said experiment, have been gathered here in Peach Creek—in one cul-de-sac, no less—after being initially scattered across the nation. Each of our families seemed to have come across a sudden windfall or job opportunity, and, without exception, purchased house here—with no counteroffers, despite this being a new development. It was almost like they were being…_set up_… for purchasing our homes. I could go on, but I doubt it is necessary. What has happened here can be no coincidence." He paused, scanning the assembly, and said clearly, with absolute certainty, "The experiment is not yet over."

"We're being watched," Kevin translated grimly, eyes flicking back and forth along the tree-line, as if expecting to see men in black hiding amidst the trunks. The breath seemed to be sucked out of the circle, and chills ran up the spines—or thin side—of the thirteen; even the warmth of the bright harvest sun, nearing the zenith of its arc, seemed to dim. Not one child uttered a peep—unlike the 'Legal Aliens' incident of the year previous, in this case their instincts told them that yelling out in fear would do more harm than good, that screaming would only reveal their position to this unknown threat.

Finally, Edd, much quieter than before, reasoned, "Well, it would certainly make long-term observation easier for Them if we were all in one place… That said, however, there is something else." Considering the news he had revealed before, the kids were all ears. Edd took a deep breath, and continued, "All this must be expensive—and I am not just talking about the technology that caused our mutations, mind—" The kids blinked at each other, surprised that the rationalist had phrased their condition as such; but, upon consideration, yes—that was what they _must_ be. The border between Sci-fi and Real Life was becoming more plastic than they had ever imagined. "—I am referring also to the relocation of families, the avoidance of government watchdogs, the expense of keeping people quiet—not all of this seems legal, to top it all…"

"You think the government is doing this?" Marie, of all people, asked, catching on; wide-eyed heads whipped around to stare either at the blue-haired voice of the proposal or gaze anticipatorily at the one who could either prove the theory or dispose of it just as easily.

For the Kids, who had grown up with their parents out of the house for the days' long hours, with seldom an adult around to guide them, who had developed from this dire need for self-sufficiency—or reliance on someone who was, or co-dependence among themselves—an ardent independent streak, this was a Big Deal. The idea that someone—_any_one: an organization, government, person, whoever—was consciously but somewhat indirectly controlling and shaping their lives and life circumstances while—to add insult to injury—covering their tracks and _hiding_ their surveillance **from** _them_… Well, it just didn't go well with any of them. It was not that they were not in control of their own lives—_hello_, **parents**—but the ability to do what they will with the freedoms they were allowed, no questions asked, has always been something generally held precious…and something by consensus held to be _guarded_ jealously, ever since the mass summer-long Grounding that had followed the Great Chase incident.

Mostly for this unspoken reason the neighborhood academic was returned to the spotlight.

Eddward kept his eyes fixed to the floor as he reluctantly conceded, "Most likely…"

"That explains where all that money the Department of Defense is getting is going," Eddy quipped, tone light but content snide. Double D raised an eyebrow, eyeing his money-minded friend, and put his palm to his forehead. _Only _Eddy_ would make _that_ connection_, he thought exasperatedly.

Kevin, who—"like any blue-blooded American", as his father would say—had a cousin or five on the front, frowned at Eddy's cynical remark, protesting, "Hey! There's a war on, remember?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "How could we _forget_?" …After all, just who _could _forget the events of that year's Fourth of July? Even for them, the holiday had been made memorable when Kevin's clan had decided to express their support for the U.S. troops in the most literal way possible. Unfortunately, the denizens of this particular corner of suburbia didn't take kindly to being awakened before dawn to the tramping feet and raucous calls of the family-manned pseudo-military drill formations—the resultant verbal battle that had ensued the inevitable confrontation of patriots and private citizens had been one of a sort fit for the ears of neither man nor beast.

"Hey!" Lee broke in preemptively, instincts honed by a lifetime of experience in Kanker-Control sensing an unnecessary squabble brewing. "_Try_ and stay on topic, here! We don't have all day, ya know!" The two flaring, hot tempers died down under the dusty damper.

Edd breathed a sigh of relief—interference had never been his strong suit, despite the Powers of the Universe constantly conspiring to force him to play that uncomfortable role—and, politely thanking the lead Kanker, resumed, "It _does_ seem most likely that it is our government who is funding—and perhaps furnishing—this experiment. That said, the fact that we are subjects of an experiment does not necessarily rule out more…benign…motives behind our tampering. For all we know, these…_powers_," Edd chewed on that particular word as though he had bitten onto a lemon seed in his lemonade, "…are not intentional—a side-effect, if you will, of a different purpose in the tampering, perhaps to more mundane ends. A happy accident, if you will, though not so much happy as serendipitous, and as of yet open to interpretation…"

Settling into some sort of shaky conclusion, he nodded to himself, and, reiterated his meaning in a rephrased form, as much for his own benefit—reassurance—as to accommodate for the others' variable vocabularies and attention spans: "We can make of this what we will, my fellows—**we** can make of this what we will. Gaining these newfound abilities may be either the best or worst thing ever to happen to us…may mark the advent of the best or worst times in our lives…may hold the key to our rise or our fall. We may have had no consent in our participation, We may not have been given any control over what has happened to us in the past—these _givens_, our "Gifts", even—but We _do _have control over the _outcomes_ of this discovery. We can make something good out of this, something that may deem us safe to be left to our own devices, or even worthy of some sort of remote protection or aid—or we may do pointless, dangerous, or even 'evil' things—acts that might merit our own destruction. Our future is in our hands, my mutant brethren, to be shaped and molded as we please." He had risen during his tirade, the only one standing, and perhaps he was maintaining their attention only by virtue of this fact.

Double D, however, was on a roll, and for once people were listening. "Let us be smart about this, then. Let us try and make good decisions now. Let us consider the consequences of how we use these Gifts—both in the short and the long term. Because We are at the threshold where We will be judged in our actions from hereon out, the turning point where the precedents for their usage will be set. Because Our Choices Now really will matter—especially for Us." Finished 'channeling Churchill', the verbose but generally quiet Edd collapsed back onto his stone seat, somewhat stunned that he had just pulled off that conclusion. But what astonished him more was…

"Can I hear an '**A**M_**E**_N'?" Ed, with all the apparent enthusiasm he threw into his role as the Peach Creek Cobbler roared; and the Kids of Ratthink Avenue responded, some voices rippled with giggles, some dead serious, some in it for the fun, smiles splitting their features, and some just following along:

"AMEN!"

…Amazingly, all the practice from those Peach Creek Middle and High joint rallies really were coming in useful for once.

The bubbly atmosphere did not last long, however; Kevin stood up, and the mood fell serious. It was time to get down to business.

"…Thank you, Double D," Kevin began, trying (and failing horribly) to not sound like the guy on the radio his mom was always listening to in the car, "So… Is there anything else we need to discuss, or can we get on with things?"

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**Notes for Reviewers:**

_**Helena: **_Thanks for the speedy review. 1) Double D's shield: Oh, you got it, all right! Albeit, it _is _a little more complicated than that… 2) On healing: Yes—how else would those bruises vanish halfway through an episode? 3) Good catch! (Beams.) To be honest, I didn't even think about that! It took me about a day to work that little logical fallacy out of the equation of Eddy's powers with just the data I had thrown in, and it probably would have butterflied out of control and forced a retcon anyways, given my original concept, so thanks for catching that flaw early! My solution was to rework certain mechanics of Eddy's basic powers—namely, which ones make his superspeed work, etc—and reroute certain other aspects of the powers so it would actually make sense that his clothes wouldn't go up in smoke at higher temperatures. At the speed Eddy was going at (circa 192 mph), however, I doubt that he would have many problems with atmospheric friction—peregrine falcons can fly even faster that without going up in smoke. If the bird can do it, why can't Eddy?

_**Spindash:**_ Yes, the whole "Eddy the Speedster" thing _is_ overused, but by this point, that is part of its charm—what EE&E Superhero story could be complete _without_ it? Rhetorical question—I've found a few that have worked without it, but it still never seemed right. Besides—it's just so much fun to play with the physics of it! : )

_**Yoshermon:**_ Thank you, thank you for doing such a thorough review of my first chapter! (You didn't read further?) I actually ended taking notes on your review (it reminded me very much of Senior Year English—it was really quite refreshing). While I will not go back and edit my chapters already published further, I have already started incorporating your advice in subsequent chapters, starting with this. (By the way, I actually _do_ like reading author's notes and disclaimers—in my experience as a longtime lurker on this site, they tell a lot about the author writing them, their intent and ability to finish the story, and the quality of the story itself.)

**Notes for Readers: **Sorry for the late update, folks—chapter was being uncooperative, and ended up rewriting it from scratch. -.-' It got rather long, so I've split it up into two chapters—the next episode should be up sometime this weekend.


	11. Chapter X—Silver Ed

**Disclaimer: **_See Prologue_

**Trial by Ed**

**Chapter X: Silver Ed**

"…_or can we get on with things?"_

Edd somehow managed to extract his computer from his pocket (the cables still miraculously wired into his bedroom power bar), and, with a little positioning, sat poised to record the proceedings. "Well, it would be advisable for any other observations to be brought to the table before we delve further into matters."

Kevin, eye twitching, was about to say something along the lines of _'I think you've delved _way_ deep into this already, Double Dweeb',_ when Jonny broke in, announcing joyously, "I make acorns grow into trees!" A beat, then Jonny responded to the silence, "How could I ever forget you, buddy?" He lifted up Plank so that all might see him. "And Plank knows things! He sees a lot, and hears stuff too!" Nearby, Marie snorted into her coffee—only to cringe under a hardwood gaze.

Jonny heard Plank murmur that the water-girl needed psychiatric help before the wood drew back within himself, as he always did when he was sensing beyond Jonny's range of seeing. Jonny took the hint, and listened to the whispering of the Woods and the Trees, the Swimming Hole, the Cliff, and even the old Earth Mother and Nature herself.

They were whispering more than usual today; there was a change in the water…

The Atmosphere and the Hydrosphere were encountering more distortion than they were accustomed to. That earthquake yesterday was not natural…

He listened in to the emotions of the animals; their instincts were often so loud and complex he couldn't hear their thoughts, but he could still feel strong emotions. Though _those_ were typically useless, catching up on what his fellow forest-dwellers were feeling was still a good exercise to do. This time, however, he picked up on the fear rife in the air, and a general, mutually-held thought accentuated by supportive instinct: a new predator was afoot. _Rolf?_

He blinked, realizing that his blue-haired buddy had tentatively raised his hand; he blinked again in disbelief; then stared—Rolf's farm-forged hand was, shockingly, trembling.

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"Friends Double D Edboy and Kevin, Rolf fears for his livestock." So quoth the deceptively simple Son-of-a-Shepherd.

Kevin's eyes flicked pointedly to Edd's, his desperate look saying, _You're on your own, dude._ Edd sighed; he had known that was going to happen, but it put him nonetheless in an uncomfortable position—again! Calming his exterior, he began to say, "Dear Rolf, we've been over this before. You are not a wolf—you are—"

"Edboy! Why must you return the butter to the churn?" Rolf interrupted. "Rolf _knows_ he is not a wolf in the flesh—but what of the mind?"

Edd stared. "The mind?" he echoed, trepidation filling his voice. _Oh, dear…_

"Yes," Rolf confirmed. "All the night and this morning Rolf has been hearing the voices in his head growing louder, to seek, to hunt, to eat…to kill." Across from him, Jimmy squeaked, and hid behind Sarah, who was hiding behind…_May_?—who, though barely tolerating being used as a human shield, _was_ permitting them shelter, most likely because of Sarah's connection to her favorite Ed.

Her second favorite Edd, however, was less than frightened; furiously typing, the look of glowing intensity on his face indicated that he was making a breakthrough in _something_—something, that is, among the billion and one questions he sought to answer on a daily basis.

Rolf only snorted. "Fear not, crybaby Jimmy and louder-than-Gertrude-on-Bathday Sarah; the voice calls you all pack—never to be harmed. Jonny-the-Woodboy's stick of wood remains lumber in its nose, but Rolf's livestock…do not hold that same fortuitous safety." Even a casual observer would have seen that the eldest of the Kids' ranks was filled to the core of his being with well-placed anxiety—far more fear in his soul than what was driving his youngest friend.

Even as the crowed had fallen silent, the tick-tacking of the keyboard kept its steady pace—increasing, in fact. Rolf growled, about to ask the nervous typist to turn off that infernal racket, when Double D summarized his observation aloud. "Fascinating! It seems that in Rolf's particular patterns, the modifications have somehow resulted in the manifestation of a set of lupine—wolf-like—instincts! I wonder why…if this was deliberate, I mean…" He trailed off, for once at a loss for terminology.

"You'll figure it out," Kevin said, steering the course of conversation away from the 'whys' to the 'what's' of the current dilemma. "Got any ideas about _fixing _this?"

Nazz, of all people, thought she had found an answer to Rolf's predicament. Unlike Rolf, who had never had a dog because of his people's perception of them as 'unclean', Nazz had grown up around them—her grandfather had been a dog trainer, first for the military, during World War II, then for an assortment of police forces and private employers up until his retirement; it had been he who had taught her, at the ripe old age of five, the connection between the dog and the wolf; and demonstrated to her that that link is vital, and still very much alive. Ah, she remembered that day…

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"_Why are they howling, Granpa?" she had asked, peering over the wood-and-wire fencing to the sled dog kennels._

_Robert "Buck" Campbell looked down at his granddaughter, bundled into a comical ball of fabric against the light Minnesota snowfall. "Because they're excited," he explained kindly. "They know they'll get to work today."_

_The tiny girl frowned, and struggled against his supporting hand—the only thing keeping her from plummeting off the wooden bottom rung and taking a tumble in the developing snowdrifts. "N_**O**_O, Granpa!" she complained. "WHY are they howling? _Wolves_ howl, not dogs."_

_Her senior smiled with good humor, a small smirk inching its way into the corners of his mouth. "What makes you think that, Nazzie?"_

_Nazz opened her mouth, then clamped it shut just as fast, and sulked, knowing that he wouldn't accept her automatic answer of 'Wolves are evil and dogs are nice', even if she did tell him her teacher _had_ told her at storytime. Instead, after a nice-and-long minute-long thought, she answered, "Wolves don't look like dogs."_

_The knowing smile was still beaming down on her. "Come now, Nazzie-Jazzie," her grandfather reasoned, pointing over the fence at some bouncing grey lumps beyond the snowdrifts. "Can you honestly say that in their presence?" Nazz looked again, this time clearly seeing the two grey lumps were in fact large—not by her standards, of course; she had seen bigger—dogs, bounding toward her on leads. To his satisfaction, his granddaughter shook her head, speechless._

_She had never seen a wolf up close—the closest thing to a wolf she had seen had been a picture in her __Animals A-to-Z__ book, that had looked very different from the wolf she was used to seeing in her picture books at home—but, thinking back to that picture, she couldn't imagine that a real-life wolf would look much different from one of these…_

"_Are you _sure_ they're dogs, Grampa?" she whispered, as the wolf-things bounded away from her, reeled in by their handler. "They sure don't _look_ like dogs."_

"_They're dogs, Nazzie," he replied with a chuckle. "Siberian Huskies. A very old breed of dog that we haven't needed to change very much from the wolf." Nazz stared at him in confused disbelief; he sighed. "_Honestly_, Nazz. Where do you think that dogs _come_ from?"_

_Again, the kindergartener stared, mind going blank. "Um…" she hesitated, thinking hard. "…Dogs?"_

_Much to the consternation of the young girl, too naïve to understand just _what_ she had said, her grandfather burst out laughing. It was a big, hearty laugh, one that lasted for over a minute before slowly dying down. "I'm sorry, Nazzie," he apologized, still chuckling. "I haven't laughed that hard since your grandma went." The morbid reminder was enough to bring an end to his joviality._

_Undeterred, Nazz asked, "What's so funny, Grandpa?"_

_Awkwardly, the elder replied, "Er…you'll find you when you're older." Nazz knew what _that_ meant—she wouldn't be getting an answer out of him. Her frustration was diverted, however, as her grandfather said, "You are correct, though. Dogs _do_ come from dogs. And you can keep going back with that—a kind of chicken-and-egg thing, you see—but eventually there comes a time when you cannot circle back further."_

"_The dinosaur, right?" Nazz guessed, remembering the old joke._

_Her grandfather shook his head. "Not this time, Nazzie. Not _dinosaur_—__**Wolf**__." He was smiling again, mind again on his favorite subject. "Man took Wolf and shaped him. And that is how Man created Dog." _

"_But Granpa," Nazz broke in; he looked down, though his mind still in 'The Zone'. "Dogs don't _act_ like wolves—wolves don't like people; you told me!" _

"_You are both right and wrong. Wild wolves _don't_ like people; they like their own packs. Dogs like people because we have shaped them to think of us as pack," the old trainer said. "That's how we made the dog—we didn't get rid of the behaviors of wolves, just changed them to suit our needs. To create the sled dog, people didn't have to do much—wolves love to run to begin with, and all that was needed was to get the dog to run for running's sake. To make the sheepdog work, though, we took the wolf's hunting instinct and removed the 'kill and eat' part from the end result, and made the dog capable of working without the 'pack leader'—it's owner—to be there every step of the way. For hunting dogs, all that was needed was to make them very obedient to humans, and to not 'eat'—killing the prey was originally the point, but for scenthounds—like bloodhounds, you've seen them," he said, reminding Nazz of the trip to the police kennel that Sunday, "we had to separate the 'kill' _and_ the 'eat' parts from the 'hunt and find' part. You see?" Nazz didn't see, but she tried to remember exactly as he said, sound for sound, concluding that this was one of those 'You'll understand when you're older' things. She nodded._

"_You take the wolf's instincts and give them a new home…"_ His voice trailed off as Nazz drew herself out of the flashback, her grandfather's voice still lingering, echoing, in her ears. She didn't get it then, but she could see what he was trying to tell her now.

She had Rolf's answer.

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"You need to keep busy." All heads turned to the blonde fourteen-year-old, startled.

Uncertain about _what_ his maybe-girlfriend (their status never had been confirmed) was thinking, Kevin gently reminded, "Erm… Nazz, this is _Rolf_ we're talking about. He's _always_ busy." He knew she knew as well as anybody that Rolf already was working a full-time job on the family farm—heck, even _Double D_ had more free time than him!—but really, what else was there to say?

Nazz rolled her eyes; she had been anticipating this reaction. "Well, _duh_. But that's not what I'm saying—_I _mean that Rolf should keep busy with things that are similar to whatever wolves do. You know, like, taking the 'hunt' part and turn it to tracking down lost sheep, dealing with the 'kill' voice by doing some butchering, and handle the 'eat' thing by…eating?"

"I see what you're saying," Double D said, nodding his head. "Rolf _should_ try to channel his new set of artificial instincts into productive outlets appropriate for daily living, if it is possible…but that's a significant uncertainty. I've met your grandfather—everyone has—oh, excuse me," he said, realizing he had forgotten the currently confused—and ergo irritated—Kanker Sisters' status as relative newcomers, and explained to their benefit, "Nazz's grandfather was an animal trainer, specializing in canids—mammals of the dog family." He shrugged. "I think likely that it is his teachings you're deriving your idea on, Nazz—his teachings on how instinctive dog behavior was derived from wolf psychology. That does make sense, but only over the course of _generations_, with natural and artificial selection placing pressures to determine the outcome, and the generations providing the opportunity for genetically-based wolf behaviors to be deleted or adequately suppressed in individual animals." Nazz's eyes widened as she saw where this was going, and she groaned, palm hitting her temple—how could she have missed that? "Now, with Rolf, who is _not_ a population, there is no way of doing away with them entirely. So even if he _can_ channel some of those instincts into certain aspects of his life—which is really quite advisable—Rolf will still have to deal with any that he isn't channeling—at any time, all the time, as often and regularly as breathing. Deliberate suppression of instincts as they arise _will_ be necessary, and perhaps avoidance of situations that bring out unwanted instincts…"

"Head-In-Cap Edboy and Nazz-girl! You insult Rolf!" The subject of conversation had finally managed to break into the debate. Realizing his rudeness and too polite to defend his actions—or point out that Rolf was missing the point entirely—Double D tuned into the foreigner's words. "…you speak of Rolf without regard for his presence, you also _dare_ suggest that Rolf loses his livestock every five fields! Not so! Rolf and Family of Rolf take great cares to keep our animals in check, and our animals do not stray!"

…Apparently, the matter had (understandably) upset the Son of a Shepherd to the point where he had lost his ability to speak proper grammatically-correct English. Edd opened his mouth, about to apologize for his callousness, when Kevin, who had been covertly speaking with Ed, interrupted them all. Ed was grinning, smitten with pride and excitement, as Kevin spoke:

"So Rolf needs something to hunt, huh? Then we'll give him something." He flicked his gaze to Rolf, and says, "Something _other_ than your farm, Rolfie."

Ed broke in, with full support, "Superheroes hunt for evil doers, and aren't punished for it!" He was practically bouncing in his seat—his two neighbors—Eddy on one side and Sarah on the other—edged away from him, giving him space. "They fight, hurt the bad guys, but aren't bad themselves. So Rolf shall be," he concludes confidently, and joins Kevin in staring almost admiringly at Rolf. "Go Rolf-Wolf!"

Rolf considered this, hopes raising. "Use Rolf's new wolfishness to foil the plots of villainous lawbreakers?" Then, the boy smiled—Edd tried to avoid staring at the kid's canines, that had indeed grown long and sharp—and said, "So simple, yes? Very good, Kevin and wit-of-half-a-chicken Edboy!" Ed started beaming—whether it was for the chicken reference than Rolf's acceptance of his superhero potential would forever remain a mystery.

Jonny, known by all present to be the local "Real-Life Superhero" (discounting that one stint he had spent as the villainous _Gourd_), jumped in, "You can join me and Splinter on patrol, Rolf!" He really sounded excited at the prospect of having his friend join him 'on the job'.

"Rolf accepts your offer, Jonny-the-Woodboy." At the prompting of an odd thought-feeling in Rolf's head, he took a panoramic glance at the circle. "Will there be any other takers?"

Jonny was about to say that he hadn't invited _everyone_—but then he realized what a great idea it was: his own superhero _team_! "Isn't this cool, Plank?" he whispered to his friend.

Ed was about jumping of the seat, ready to 'enlist', but something—i.e. Eddy's fingers—stopped him. From next to Eddy, Edd exhorted in a hushed voice, "Ed, please _think_ about what you're doing for once! Do you realize the danger you'd be putting yourself in? What would Sarah think if something happened to you?" The big Ed's eyes widened with fright; the other two could almost _see_ the wheels turning in his head, and the thought _'Sarah, don't tell Mom!'_ reeling around in that hollow cavity.

…Then, just as quickly as he had tensed up, Ed relaxed, realizing that the anticipated outcome hadn't happened yet. Good. _But if I say I'm going to become a superhero, then Sarah will know, and she'll tell Mom, and I'll be GROUNDED! And that'll be bad…_ Ed reasoned to himself. "Gee, thanks, guys. Close salve."

"You mean 'save', Ed," Edd corrected, returning to his scriptorial work…only to wince, slamming his fingers down on the keys, as a whistle pierced the air. _"Ooh… Sloppy-sloppy-sloppy…"_ he mumbled under his breath, control-Z-ing his work back to its original, non-gibberish content.

The chatter dying down, Kevin, the whistler, took charge. "Great thinking, Jonny," he said. "Rolf, you'll need to practice—in private, I know," he preempted Rolf's protest. In a stroke of brilliance, he decided aloud, "We'll use the Old Gym," referring to the gym at their "Old School", Peach Creek Middle; "I've still got the key, and they're closed today."

"I'll take out the security cameras for you," Edd volunteered, setting aside his regard for the rules in favor of securing the secrecy of his friends' clandestine activities.

Kevin froze for a moment, stunned but pleased. "…Thanks, Double D," he nodded, genuinely grateful and not a small part relieved. Even if he _did_ turn out to have some mad techno-powers, he knew that there was no way he, at least for the time being, would be able to pull off the miracles the whiz-kid performed on a daily basis. Then, something occurred to him. "…Um… any idea about how to make our powers work? You know, like, on purpose?"

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Edd's eyes lifted over the monitor screen for a short moment, then flicked down. "A minute, if I may," he said, and quickly flipped back through the files in his briefcase, tilting the processor dangerously in his haste. Eddy leaned over to catch it—imagine how much money that thing must cost!—only to be stopped about an inch away by some…force. Then Edd jubilantly cried, righting himself, "Aha! Found it!" — Faster than the brain could register, Eddy recoiled.

Edwardian antics unawares, Eddward flipped to a page, scanning the lines. "Not exactly, Kevin," he answered. "While there is a pattern to how we may control our powers, that pattern is that 'the method by which one controls one's powers appears to be based on the mindset, personality, and interests—among other factors—of the individual in question'—hardly a guide for all of us to follow." Inwardly, Kevin groaned; he should have known it couldn't be this easy. Blissfully unaware of the captain's frustration, Edd continued, "There is a more promising possibility."

"Shoot," Kevin prompted; things were looking up—not that they could have gone lower.

Edd nodded, elaborating. "From my observations, however, I have discerned another pattern, perhaps more useful to us. Our powers seem to be able to activate in three ways—consciously, subconsciously, or reflexively. Marie Kanker's powers manifested subconsciously and maintained strength throughout much of the morning. She was then able to replicate it through willpower—but she had had plenty of time with her powers activated to figure out how to do so. Most of us have not had that luxury. For instance, the shield I…emitted… activated on reflex when Eddy was about to crash into me, and disappeared just as quickly. Perhaps, by replicating the circumstances that resulted in reflexive manifestations of power, we may be able to familiarize ourselves with what we are capable of doing, determine how to 'turn them off'… Especially for you, Rolf, as I doubt that you want to knock yourself into unconsciousness every time you need to return to your original form." Rolf flinched at the memory, agreeing with the Sock-as-a-Hat Edboy completely. "Once we figure out how to turn them off, we _should_ be able to use the same mechanism to 'turn them on' again."

Kevin cocked an eyebrow. "…You sure about this?"

"Well, it hasn't been tested yet…" Edd admitted. "…but I am fairly confident that…" He trailed off, his tone of voice betraying his anxiety. No, without another subject from which to draw data he wasn't confident _at all_ in this plan. "…It seems to be the most logical procedure." He bit his lip, clamming up.

"We need a test subject, then." At the surprised looks of all around him, Kevin explained, "It makes sense to try it out now, since we're all here."

"Can't argue with that," Lee Kanker agreed, without protest from her siblings.

…With the Kankers as backers, any thought of protesting the plan flew out the fire escape.

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**Notes for Reviewers:**

_**Helena:**_ Hello, again! Knowing Eddy, chances are how his powers work will not get touched upon…well, by him, anyway. Of course, who knows what will come up in pseudo-scientific ramblings, what with Double D and the Lab Rats (we'll meet them in a couple of chapters).

_**Spindash:**_ 1) Well, I hope you got your answer—on some of the characters, anyway. 2) And thank you so much for your input on the exposition chappies—I've been really, really nervous about them, because of their length, detail, and… lack of action? I mean, this is turning out to be more of a thinking story, so it really shouldn't be that much of an issue, but… Yeah. You're the first counter-opinion to that particular Pandora's Box of insecurities, so again, thanks. 3) I have never heard of inFamous, so if it does come out similar, I suppose it would be a case of convergent thought-lines.

**Notes for Readers: **Hello, all! Got this published in the weekend, as I promised. Just one more chapter, and we'll finally be getting out of the swimming hole. I'm really quite excited about that—the chapter after next chapter will include one of my favorite scenes written for this story so far! (You'll never guess what it's about! ; _)_)  
>Unfortunately, that's going to be after I've tackled the homework that's been piling up this week while I've been working on this thing. Fun. So, no more updates this weekend; see ya next week!<p>

~The Arcticourt Spellwright


	12. Chapter XI—Testing, Testing, Ed

**Disclaimer: **_**See Prologue**_

**Trial By Ed**

**Chapter XI: Testing, Testing, Ed**

Kevin, thinking with the same cold logic he used to plan plays for the team, concluded that Double D could not in good mind let someone else be forced into serving as the subject of an experiment he had suggested. Still, were there any volunteers? He looked around. He couldn't do it; there was nothing he could really practice on here. Nazz didn't have a clue what she was going to do; Jonny and Plank were having a 'conversation'; the Kankers looked calm and interested, but were clearly not going to volunteer (not that Kevin would willingly endanger himself by even _suggesting_ they do so)… Jimmy let out a petrified squeak as his gaze passed him over… Sarah, teeth bared, looked about ready to yell at him for scaring the younger eleven-year-old… _No goin' there_, Kevin shuddered.

The next down the line (or circle, as the case may be), however, was almost obvious. "Ed?" he prodded, wondering why the science fiction nut wasn't jumping at this opportunity.

"Nokey-dokey," replied Ed blithely. "I can control time and space and teleport to anyplace. But these powers are not flashy or showy—and I already practiced. I know what I can do. No thanks."

Sarah stared. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"It seems that the current spike in abnormal activity has resulted in a temporary increase in Ed's capacity for reasoning," Double D observed, wondering what Ed was meaning by his list of powers. _Can he be serious?_ He shook his head. _No, he couldn't be—surely he would have informed me…_

…Then again, Ed hadn't informed him and Eddy that his 'plan for a scam' involved a _curse calling down crows to plague the cul-de-sac_ during the Evil Tim Incident, either. A tiny tendril of worry—what calmer people would call 'all-out anxiety'—flickered through his mind. "Are you sure, Ed?"

"Like I said, Double D, I practiced," Ed irrelevantly explained. Eddy, who had still been munching on popcorn, exhaled a spray of half-chewed yellow crumbs out of pure shock, and sat, sputtering, as Edd silently handed him a napkin, thinking…

"Yup! Just ask Eddy—he saw!" Eddy scowled under the yellow finger's poking.

"Yeah, yeah, Lumpy. I saw your wormhole…" Tormenting digit appeased, Eddy rubbed the red sore spot on his scalp, irritated.

Ed beamed, his 'point' proven. "See, Double D? Old news. Wormholes are in, and monkeys are bananas."

Edd blinked—he had, of course, known about that theoretical loophole in Einstein's equations. But for someone to actually warp space-time _in practice…_ Well, to possess enough energy to perform that feat seemed almost godlike! "…Can you do anything else, Ed?" Now, Edd himself was not a particularly religious person, but he was well-aware of his rather…divinely-favored heritage—a faith tradition of over three **thousand** years… Yes, it would be prudent to check.

…Just in case.

Ed skewed up his face, trying to remember… "Uh, I forget." His cleaner companion exhaled—no, Ed _couldn't _be God incarnate… _How ludicrous! _…Though the implications of space-time manipulation suggested that Ed was the most powerful among them, even now, it seemed that his intelligence—or lack thereof—would continue to prove to be an obstacle…and perhaps in that, a godsend. _Absolute power corrupts absolutely…_

"So, dork-'n-stein, you've already practiced," Kevin checked, sensing an opportunity to skip this whole ordeal—and breaking up the distracting 'dork-fest' as a bonus. "Then _how'd_ you get them to work?"

The Great Unibrow lowered and crinkled. "Not a clue, Kevin! I just _do._" Kevin rolled his eyes; that figured.

"Can Rolf see, brain-of-a-hairless-yak Edboy?" Rolf encouraged. The yellow lump nodded, and snapped his finger…

"SQU**AWK**!"

Eddy had to abandon his popcorn—sending it flying as he ducked—as a big brown chicken came flapping up out of a glowing light-green-sided hole into darkness that had swirled into existence between his and a beaming Ed's feet. "I _hate_ birds," Eddy muttered…at a rate of once a day, the utterance seemed to be becoming his new catch phrase.

Edd just stared—_What in Sam Hill…?_ His thought was cut off by Rolf's indignant squawk.

"EDBOY!" There was no contention as to which Ed Rolf, now with the frightened Greta in his arms, was referring this time. "You dare steal Rolf's chickens yet again?"

"Sorry, Rolf!" came the reply. Rolf eyed the repeat-offender chicken-thief suspiciously, harried hen held in hands—but, much to the other children's and chicken's relief, did not pursue further confrontation.

He had, after all, asked for it.

–∙∙∙/∙/∙–∙–/∙–/∙–∙/∙/∙∙–∙/∙∙–/∙–∙∙/∙––/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–/∙–∙––/–––/∙∙–/∙––/∙∙/∙∙∙/∙∙∙∙/∙∙–∙/–––/∙–∙/

"Remember to close the portal, Ed; something might get in," Edd advised—Ed's eyes widened, thinking of the Star Kraken from Realms Of Chaos: It Came From The Beyond… How could he have been so careless? A flying spaghetti monster could hijack the portal and break through into the world… Oh, yeah. Ed snapped his fingers.

The swirling abyss snapped shut.

The world was safe once more!

…and Double D was still talking. Didn't he _realize_ the world was just put in danger of noodley annihilation? _So smart, and yet so blind…_ Sometimes Ed wondered if his ever-overcomplicating friend would even _notice_ if he was _being devoured by the __**Monster von Arramberri**_during one of his research kicks… "…you somehow managed to key the creation and closure of wormholes to the snapping of your fingers…" Key? Like, as in, nukes? Big trouble…oh, he _did _get it! And now… Oh. So he's upset? "…Why…" Perhaps he _should _explain…

/–/∙–/∙–∙∙/∙–∙∙/∙/–∙/–/––/∙∙–/∙∙∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙–/∙∙∙–/––/∙/––/–––/∙–∙/ –∙––/––∙∙––/––∙/∙/–∙/∙∙/∙∙–/∙∙∙/–∙∙/–––/–∙/∙––––∙/–/∙–∙/∙/––∙–/∙∙–/∙∙/∙–∙/∙/∙∙/–/∙–∙–∙–/

"Mary Poppins told me to 'free the birds', Double D!" Ed explained—explaining nothing at all, aside from his reasoning for opening a portal into Rolf's henhouse. "Or was it to 'feed Willie'?" Evidently, pondering movie quotes far exceeded reasoning for warping the fabric of the _universe itself_ on Ed's list of things to think about.

_That's it_, Sarah thought, realizing what probably had infected her idiot brother's head. _He's off Family Movie Night _forever_._

Simultaneous and contrary to Sarah's displeasing deduction, a warm smile flickered across the black-capped Ed's face—_Ah. _There's_ our Ed. _It soon withered, however, falling flat as its wearer realized that Kevin had fixed his eyes pointedly on him. While that in _itself_ was endurable, the gaze had directed the other kids to look and see whom Kevin had targeted—and the expectations of his peers were not. He sighed, and bowed his head to destiny. "Who am I to shirk the call to scientific inquiry? I'll go." Kevin nodded, unsurprised.

Flinching under the waiting gazes of his peers, Edd reversed the miracle he had pulled off earlier and returned his computer, massive monitor and all, back into his pocket. The safety of the expensive equipment ensured, he stepped out of the circle of kids, estimating a reasonably safe distance from the others, and padded down to the swimming hole shore. Feeling as though he had walked onto a shooting gallery dressed as a wapiti, he turned around to face them…

And ducked to the side, hands covering his head, as the opening salvo—nine cobbles, a wrench, and a sandwich suddenly came rushing at him. _**Splat. **_He cringed as old-salami-on-rye messily impacted his neck. _'Slimy, slimy, slimy…'_ he muttered, clambering into a sitting position… _**Squelch**_. Suddenly alert, the filth-o-phobe followed the sound, discovering that the festering fare had lost its battle with the nigh-vertical slope and succumbed to the force of gravity. Extracting a handtowel from his pocket, he thusly began trying to remove the mayo-and-mustard streak down his back.

"Hey, hey! No fair! He wasn't ready!" Eddy, the only one who hadn't thrown something, objected, glaring accusatorily into Kevin's face.

Kevin rolled his eyes. "Lay off, dork. He said he wanted it on reflex, so he couldn't see it coming!" They looked over at the sock-headed Edboy, who was clambering to his feet, dusting the sand off. "Nice dodge!" Kevin complimented, and carefully jibed, "If you were that fast in ducking during games, we may stand a chance this year!" Double D was still mumbling, but no one could make it out. Well, he did look a bit winded… "You 'kay?" he called.

"Yes, Ke-," the human target was once again cut off by another wall of flying rocks. Before he could dodge, a barely perceptible dome suddenly appeared around him, and deflecting the barrage. Double D grinned, despite the now noticeable drain on his energy—the first stage of the experiment was a success! They _had_ managed to induce a reflexive reaction in spite of his foreknowledge.

His seemingly off-topic elation did not bode well for the others, though. "You got the feeling, Double D?" Kevin checked.

Edd blinked; he had almost forgotten! But _feeling?_ Yes, it fit the pattern, but it still seemed impossible—as though there was supposed to be some sort of sixth sense involved? If there was, it wasn't working yet—he could feel nothing different. To Double D, there seemed to be no actual _feeling_, as one would have hoped for in order to begin developing a memory of a sensation—just the vague awareness at the edge of his mind that he was _enclosed_ by something… Good thing he wasn't claustrophobic. He did feel, however, a slight drain on his energy—perhaps that was the sensation? He shrugged to himself. _As good as any_, he reasoned, growing somewhat impatient in spite of himself… Then the flood gates opened, and the Flood came pouring in.

∙–/–∙/–∙∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/–/∙∙/–∙∙/∙/∙–∙/∙∙/∙∙∙/∙/∙∙∙/––∙∙––/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/–/∙∙/–∙∙/∙/∙∙–∙/∙–/∙–∙∙/∙–∙∙/∙∙∙/∙–∙–∙–/

Flood. He had come up with the term some years ago, upon learning about the psychological phenomenon called 'Flow', to describe a mental state that he was prone to falling into, when he had found no better analogy confirmed . The convention had seemed unsuited to describe his particular case—for one thing, he was aware of when he was in the state, unlike the professionally recognized—but following the analogy, it had been only natural for Edd to dub his mental quirk as he did. (It was his personal joke to relate it to Noah's Flood—with himself as the Leviathan: better off, untouchable by the Flood, benefiting from it but not in control.)

It wasn't the first time he had been in Flood; quite the contrary—this was the mental state into which he fell every time he began one of his great Experiments or Projects. But this Flood he experienced was odd, compared to the usual gush of ideas. Normally, he would lose himself in his thoughts, in too deep to follow the goings-on of the world outside his head, oblivious to the passage of time. Or the Flood would start with an idea, a hypothesis, a problem or equation, that would be the center of the web. Then into that would rush memories and experiences, calculations and observations and logical conclusions, probabilities and possibilities, materials and measurements, all of which he would sort through, culling out irrelevant details and unnecessary factors, until every potential detail in the projected process he was building within the confines of his grey matter had been accounted for. This Flood was different in that when it welled up into his consciousness it was already at the stage following the Unsorted Chaos; the preceding steps had been processed by his subconscious down to a mere three variables: size, shape, and 'medium'—whatever that meant. The grid-environment was irrelevant; there was only one, albeit new, material—an unnamed material—with which he could construct… anything. Any size, any shape, provided he had access to enough energy to put into it.

For once, he was in control of one driving force behind his 'accursed inventive ways'. Compared to previous Floods he had experienced, this state was not Noah's _Flood_—the Leviathan had just been thrown into Noah's _Lake._

All of this thought-sensation was encrypted within the backlog of memories that was welling into the fore of his mind. A memory of an action he did not do, that his _subconscious_ did; he was remembering, experiencing in hindsight, a process, the reigns of which the involuntary reflexes of his nervous system were now handing over to the control of his conscious mind.

Could he bring it up again of his own accord?

Experimentally, he directed some energy into the field already surrounding him, observing how the initial 'push' drained his energy as effectively as running…but only that initial ignition, with further power slipping past him from out of some unknown source. _Where on earth…? _He instructed the flow of energy to cease, and it stopped. _How?_ He really would have to look into this further…

Nevertheless, he concluded yes—it seemed more or less probable he could bring it back. With an adequate answer to the prompt Kevin had initially posed finally realized, the Flood, satisfied, began to subside…

∙––/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–/∙∙/∙∙∙/–∙/∙/∙–∙–/∙/∙∙∙/∙∙∙/∙–/∙–∙/∙–∙––/–/–––/∙–∙–/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–∙/––∙/∙/∙–/∙––∙/∙/∙–∙/∙∙∙/–––/–∙/∙∙/∙∙∙/–/–––/∙–∙–/∙∙∙∙/∙–/–∙/––∙/∙/∙∙∙∙/∙∙/∙∙∙/∙–/∙––/∙–/∙–∙/∙/–∙/∙/∙∙∙/∙∙∙/–––/∙∙–∙/∙∙∙∙/∙∙/––/∙∙∙/∙/∙–∙∙/∙∙–∙/∙–∙–∙–/

Kevin growled, staring in annoyance at the still figure standing by the waterfront. It had been _ten_ minutes, and he wasn't used to the guy spacing out like this…it was actually kind of concerning. He opened his mouth, about to repeat the question, when the dork opened his eyes.

"Yes," the Cul-de-sac Braniac answered, uncertain of just _how_ much time had passed since the Flood had drowned out his awareness of his surroundings. "I believe I have it!" Indeed, for the young scientist it was a true 'Eureka!' moment…but there is only so many times one can invoke Archimedes before the word gets old.

Kevin relaxed somewhat—the resident Smart Guy hadn't gone brain dead or whatever. "Good. Now try to do it _on purpose_. We'll help." He picked up a rock. "On my whistle…" Kevin lifted his fingers to his mouth…

"Hey! Why _your_ whistle?" Eddy broke in—he wasn't about to let Kevin grab _all_ the power.

"Because mine's better!" Kevin snapped, his temper getting the better of him and his brain.

"Wow—look at the sparks!" Ed interjected. Had this been one of his comic books, there would have been lightning _beams_ zig-zaging between their glares.

Ignoring his friend's delusional comment, Eddy rolled his eyes at Kevin's insinuation. "Yeah? What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

_He's just making this __**too**_easy_, _Kevin thought, frustration and irritation translating into smugness as he, already anticipating a verbal checkmate, with a hint of the taste of victory on the tongue, savored the effortless payback for the incurable dork's irritating interferer. "Have you ever heard yourself whistle? It _sucks_." Before Eddy could again retaliate, Lee stepped between them.

"Both of you, shut up! _I'll _whistle, got it!" Faced with the tangible-though-invisible glare of the eldest Kanker, neither boy could object. Lee nodded, satisfied, and barked to the crowd, "Alright! Everyone, throw when I whistle, but not before! One…Two…Three…" An earsplitting shriek reminiscent of a boatswain's call suddenly split the morning sky. The kids winced. _"I think my ears are bleeding, Plank." _

Nevertheless, the wall of stone-and-a-sponge came barreling at Edd, who was consciously trying to duplicate the defense. Instead, however, the stream of rocks-and-rubber froze, midair, without warning. Double D yelped in shock, and stumbled. With the distraction, the cobbles fell to the ground.

"Oh. I get it…telekinesis!" The kids looked at Ed, who was slightly giddy. "He either uses telekinesis to make the force field, or makes a lot of tiny force fields around individual atoms to move objects to simulate telekinesis! Used in Action Comics Mindman Episode Twelve and AtomiForce Two Volume Thirty-Eight, respectively," Ed cited.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Oh, _brother_."

"Yes I am!" Ed grinningly said, missing her sarcasm completely. "So you're a force-fielder, Double D?" he asked conversationally.

"…If you say so, Ed," Edd replied, again clearly out of his element and his newfound confidence dashed—_So I am not _completely_ in control, yet…_

"Turn invisible, then!" Everyone stared at Ed, nonplussed. The geek sighed, and explained, "'Force fields and invisibility tend to go hand in hand. When one controls force fields, you can expect him to be invisible, and vice versa,' from the Practical Field Guide to Superhuman Phenomena, by Dr. D.P. Grove."

"…That's very interesting, Ed," Edd floundered, searching for a way to reject the suggestion pragmatically. "Maybe some other time, though? I wouldn't want to put too much of a strain on my powers too soon—I've seen enough of your movies to know that for one to 'overdo it' usually ends in disastrous consequences. Besides," he caught Ed in the middle of opening his mouth to protest, "I actually would rather like to test the limitations of my force fields—it may help us shed some light on what the others can do."

"Good thinking," Kevin agreed, saying, "We can use you anyway with experimenting with some of our powers, Double Dork. If finding stuff that can break through your force field is what we're doing, then we got quite a few options."

On the same page, the edges of the force-fielder's mouth twitched upward momentarily, despite growing anxiety. "Heat, water, brute force," he listed.

"Wind," Marie pointed out, surprising the rest. She nudged May, who sat up, spine straightened with pride—it was clear to all that the blustery airhead had to have been the one to control…well, air.

"…Ah. Thank you, Marie," Edd complemented—best reward civilized behavior where it is displayed, after all! He briefly pondered the off-topic of whether air was capable of permeating his force fields—he could breathe in them, did he not? And if the air couldn't penetrate, vulnerability though that was, how much time would he have before his air supply ran down? Yes, this was a matter he had to investigate. Returning his attention to the roster, he continued, "We've tested projectiles already—and Jonny, you control plants?"

"Yup," asserted the tree-hugger, chest puffed out with pride.

"…Lee will need to test you, too—she moves dirt and stuff," Marie added. At a curious look, she shrugged, and said, "Your force field is _round—_but does it go all the way around? Does it go through the dirt? And if it does that, what if you're standing on a tree branch? Will you cut it and make you and the branch fall? Or does it just flow around stuff in the way? And if that, does it leave a shadow on its leeside?" It occurred to Eddward that while her proper usage of nautical jargon was unsurprising, given that the interior of the Kankers' Trailer displayed a distinctly maritime background, but her suddenly profuse usage of the terminology and switch to relevant analogy seemed to indicate that her mindset was already adapting to a more...suitable state for her powers. _Interesting..._

While the scientist was inwardly debating this development, Kevin raised his eyebrows, thinking about the potential tactical weakness she was suggesting. "Good points," the football captain admitted. "Anything else?"

"Well, we should test to see if Jimmy has any affects from being in close range—it could help decipher whether the medium used in the force fields is electromagnetic—and if he can walk on it. It would also be sensible for tactical reasons to see if Ed can produce a wormhole to get through it," Eddward acknowledged, not to be outdone by a Kanker. "But those can be arranged at another time. I suggest that two of us keep notes at a time—one for my behavior, one for whoever is testing me."

"Good. That kills two birds with one stone," Kevin said. "Nazz, Jimmy, would you—" His request was interrupted by the clicking of a retractable pen.

"Already on it, Kev." Beside him, Nazz was holding the pen primed to take notes—both pen and clipboard were labeled, meaning she must have borrowed it from the briefcase by Edd without his knowledge . As she spoke, she passed another to Jimmy. Kevin rolled his eyes; while not that book-smart, his longtime friend could be quicker on the uptake than he…sometimes. He shot her a grateful glance.

"Who of you—and you know who you are—wants to go first?" Double D trembled slightly at the football captain's words, noticing the sudden predatory countenance of the Kanker Sisters.

He was not alone, however, in his fears. "I'll go," Eddy volunteered, much to Kevin and Sarah's disbelief. The ascendant speedster then flinched under the four furious gazes of the most violent girls in the cul-de-sac. The sock-headed Ed-boy, however, exhaled, relieved that at the very least he could still have a bit of a mental break before the Kankers could pummel him with various states of matter…before realizing that this meant he would still be facing another round with the "Human Bullet".

…Kanker or no Kanker, he might actually have preferred just having his question of whether or not he can asphyxiate in his own force field answered instead.

–∙∙∙/∙/–/∙––/∙/∙/–∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/∙∙∙∙/∙–/––/––/∙/∙–∙/∙–/–∙/–∙∙/–/∙∙∙∙/∙/∙–/–∙/∙∙∙–/∙∙/∙–∙∙/

Five minutes later, Eddy had returned to his seat, rubbing his head but pleased that he had learned to consciously control his speed, while Edd had remained, teetering, in his position by the water's edge; both heads were smarting from the barrage of collisions—as Nazz recorded, in less than three minutes, Eddy had crashed into the force field over twenty times, and run over it, around it, or _missed_ it, like, eight times. Jimmy was jotting down his observation that Eddy had astonishingly been able to run _over_ Edd's force field…across the swimming hole… and up a tree. Without hands. _When he gets over his sore head,_ Jimmy noted, _Eddy should invest in a windshield—that smashed-fly-paper look is simply __**grotesque**__._ Sarah, reading over his shoulder, chortled maliciously at his written quip.

Kevin, also smirking at the short Ed's new 'do, indicated that May would go next. She immediately hopped up, excited to try her new "powers" on a live target (god forbid), the focus of her excitement directing the air around them into the tiring Edd's barely constructed shield. Fifty leaf-stripping seconds later, the wind died down. May summarily returned to her seat beside her sisters, tagging Marie to take her turn in the superpower relay.

However, Double D walked over, wearily reporting, "There is no need for Marie to test my shields; air and water are similar enough that I believe my conclusions on air would apply to water. During Eddy's round, I tried to asphyxiate myself by blocking air from penetrating, to no avail; it seems that just as one cannot commit suicide by preventing one's own respiratory system from functioning through willpower—not breathing—I cannot block the necessary atmospheric conditions for life from being filtered in through the shield. Nonetheless, May," he acknowledged the youngest Kanker, "My shields _did_ block your gust of wind. So it seems that while air _can_ pass through, it can be no more than what is required for life."

"Hm. Our own life support system," Kevin said, thinking back to some documentary he had seen on human space flight—how would Edd's shields hold up to the throws of the vacuum? It was an intriguing possibility to the football captain, who was already considering the different playing fields one might find on the roads of a life that had suddenly got a whole lot stranger. However, he shoved the thought back into his head almost immediately, knowing that while Double Dork would probably be up to sacrificing himself "in the pursuit of knowledge", the other dorks wouldn't stand for it.

"Guess it's my turn, then," the Kanker leader decided, striding to a reasonably safe distance from her siblings and from the spot where Edd had been standing. "Well, _come on!_"

Veins chilling rapidly, Edd scurried back to his station, already drawing up a shield in anticipation of a characteristically brutal Kanker assault.

Back over on the kids' side of the clearing, Lee tapped the ground experimentally. A slight tremor rippled outwards from the point of impact, and what leaves that had survived May's onslaught rustled with the vibration. But Edd, seemingly untouched by her efforts, asked, "Lee, why haven't you—"

Lee cut him off with an irate glare. "I _did_," she ground out—Edd winced at the thought of how much pressure she must be putting on her molars. Unsatisfied with her results, Lee sprang up, vainly trying to throw even more force into her quakes. Edd forced himself to throw more energy into his shield, bracing for the impact. Lee stomped back down into the solid ground, throwing full weight into her feet. The stolid earth cracked under her feet, mushrooming plumes rose up in a ring around the invisible orb, the submerged earthen floor of the swimming hole sent rippling waves across the water's already wind-tousled surface, and all that was grounded shook as the shockwaves rumbled across the banks.

When the sand-clouds cleared, and the layer of disturbed dust that had clouded the clearing now dissipated, the kids uncovered their eyes, blinking, and gaped, wide-eyed. Unseen-eyed Lee's jaw dropped, dumbfounded—as evidenced by her stance, the most surprised of all. For there stood Double D, neither the ground within his barrier nor himself seemingly untouched by the tremendous seismic force that Lee had unleashed, staring at the effects set before him in awe, as thoroughly impressed, if disturbed, as Lee was shocked. Lee, breathing hard, surveyed the damage, gruffly conceding, "Well, it seems it works."

"So it seems," Eddward agreed, somewhat lackluster in tone—he was beginning to dearly regret not getting his full eight hours' REM the night before… Alas, the process of discovery waits for no man—mortal or otherwise. "However, try to move the dirt below me. I would like to test the potential properties of the force field that your sister has suggested." Lee nodded sharply, recognizing that subtlety may be more effective in cracking this tough shell than brute force, and changed tactics.

Tentatively, a single small scoop of dirt detached itself from the surrounding soil and was deposited a short distance away. Emboldened by that apparent success, the earth-moving Kanker tried for a larger scoop, with similar but clunkier results. A few more attempts, testing different amounts of earth, resulted in the substance being chiseled away, rising up in an arching stream of and piling itself up some yards away. Instead of exposing gaps in the shield, however, the barrier, undetectable to the human eye, filled in each crack, even where some harder clumps of dirt and pebbles had remained "crossing over" the barrier, where Marie had anticipated the 'flow' of the shield wouldn't be as strong. Of course, maybe she was correct, and it was weaker in those areas—but its presence was there, nonetheless.

The kids looked on, with increasing interest, as the land under Edd's feet eroded, but Eddward just looked on in increasing fascination and anticipation, bracing himself for gravity's inevitable influence, and Lee—well who could tell what Miss Blinding Bangs is ever looking at?—was betrayed by her stance as intently fixated on the task at hand.

Then the arcing jet of soil slowed to a dribble and ceased, leaving Double D's force field hovering over the cavity; what earth it had enclosed was now suspended within the bubble.

–∙∙/∙/∙∙–∙/ –∙––/∙∙/–∙/––∙/––∙/∙–∙/∙–/∙∙∙–/∙∙/–/ –∙––/–∙–∙––/

"It's a bunt cake, Eddy," Ed noted, garnering an odd look from his shorter but more grounded friend.

It was just then that Edd yelped, drawing Eddy's attention. Before his eyes, Double D dropped his shields and collapsed to the sandy soil. _**Clunk. **_For several seconds, Ed and Eddy glanced at each other, alarmed; they both knew that he must have hit his head on the wrench from the first round. Eddy winced—that _had_ to hurt! Just then, Eddy's feet lost contact with the ground, picked up by his taller friend. In the uncomfortable position of having his face next to Ed's pockets, Eddy felt his eyes water.

Some things were just not meant to be smelled by the human nose.

Before he could vomit, however, Ed dropped him—Eddy floundered like a fish for a moment on the sand before gaining enough oxygen. Ironically, though, it was Mr. Stench-a-lot who gasped. "Double D has lost all his health points, Eddy!" Climbing to his feet, Eddy looked down and to his left at Double D, and found himself agreeing. The guy was _definitely_ dead from the neck up.

"He needs to return to the Life Center to restore his health," Ed was diagnosing further. Eddy twitched—Ed was going into one of his 'tangents'—a more polite way of saying 'delusions', in Eddy's opinion.

Best stop it before he starts returning to random staircases to 'save' before leaving his house…even if it would be positively _hilarious_, it would definitely get annoying after a while. Raising his hand…opening his mouth to object…"Woah, Lump—" On a rare instance, Ed cut him off mid-word.

"One step ahead of yah, Eddy," Ed said, shouldering their fallen comrade. "I got his stuff." With a snap, he opened up one of his wormholes. Eddy, memory of the 'Bird Bomb' still fresh in his memory, unconsciously backed away…

_CR__**ACK! **_His toe caught itself in the sand. _What the…?_

The clamor didn't stop there. _FW__**IPPP—**__TH__**WACK!**_ Was followed by a claws-on-a-chalkboard rendition of "**EE**E**EE**K!" _Was that Jimmy? _He began to look over his shoulder as the same high voice loudly whined, "SARAH! Owie!"

Eddy rolled his eyes. …_Oh, __**yeah.**_ _Did ya even have to guess?_ The 'retired' scammer scowled at his own answer. _Getting soft!_, he self-berated, suddenly bitter that in the course of only a year, his hard-earned ability to discern just who was screaming out in pain had fallen so far that he couldn't even recognize _Jimmy_.

He didn't have time to dwell on this, though, as the three wiry hairs on the back of his head twitched and stood on end, and his ears picked up a voice saying, "Oy, Shortcake! Get down!" Eddy hit the deck—erm, sand. Coughing out a mouthful of dust, he waited, nerves smarting, watching from the top of his eyes as first one pen, then another, like bullets, whizzed in the direction of the wormhole. Then a clipboard, then another clipboard. Then a pause.

Thinking he was no longer under fire, Eddy lifted his head… Then his tri-array of whiskers went nuts, and he found himself back flat on his stomach, huddled in a makeshift foxhole in the dirt…just as Double D's hard-shelled briefcase clipped the edge of his hairs as it barrelled toward the vortex. Eddy flinched—that could've been his head lopped off!

"Whoops, sorry Eddy," a certain voice lumped. Then, out of nowhere, Eddy found himself lifted into the air by his hair—his nerve endings screamed, and so did Eddy! He struggled, turning himself to face his lifter…who was grinning, oblivious to that Eddy's scalp was on fire (metaphorically speaking, of course). "Couldn't forget to bring you!" Then, to the Kids, who were silently undergoing a severe case of 'Ed Shock', Ed directed, "See ya all back at Base!"

From behind him, Eddy heard someone call out, "Where's base?" Then, Eddy found himself being dragged through the wormhole with Ed.

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**To Readers:** Sorry, sorry, SORRY for the late update! I had this ready to go, but only just got around to posting. Blame it on the kitchen remodel, midterms (weird since it was only September), my mother cutting herself with a box cutter which resulted in me wasting _two_ days in the ER while she got stitched up, complemented on her near-surgical flesh cutting abilities and scolded over her reopening the thing… among other disasters. You know, same old, same old, only crammed into a single month. Joy. If my writing in this chapter seems rough, I can only say that my patience has been wearing _quite_ thin recently, and I _really_ wanted to get this thing out.

As far as the story goes, we should be over the bulky exposition; things should go faster now that that is out of the way. But yes, people, all that _was_ necessary; within it are Double D's grounds for investigation and the Kids' expectations. If you haven't a clue about some of the terms used in his lecture, I recommend you check out Wikipedia. (I did.) I hope I got some of the concepts across, however, in spite of not being able to reference developments better distributed in the present, such as the term 'gene therapy'. I also hope that in the past two chapters you have successfully caught the hints to key concepts regarding the timing and political environment of the story. Also, in this chapter, I have focused on familiarizing the characters (and readers) to the kids' powers. But note—not all their powers have manifested, nor has the spectrum of their abilities been represented properly. Further, the source of their powers' variety in spite of the same treatment will become an issue…sometime. Just know there _is_ a structure to all their powers, from Ed's space-time manipulation to Rolf's wolfishness and from DD's force fields to the Kankers' elemental abilities… and there is pattern in it all.

Riddles aside, things will speed up from here. I thank you for your patience in enduring the information dump.

That said, I have a question for you all: How are the Kankers integrating? Also, I would like to hear your opinions on what you think will happen next—not to say that I'll use them, as I have this thing planned pretty far out in advance, but it would help me see whether you are picking up on the clues I think I am leaving.

_**Recommended Reading: **_On the upside, I found this WONDERFUL fanfiction series I'm still sqeeing over called "Night of the Were-Ed", which I'm shamelessly recommending here because it's not on —it's a comic! I found it on Deviant Art through TV Tropes by Nintendo-Nut1 (the writer of the Super Eds story on my favorites list). It's definitely worth a look for all you supernatural and/or Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy fans. Despite being a fanwork itself, it's _still _got it's own _fanart._ If that isn't an indicator of a good story, I don't know what is! (Don't let it color your imaginations about how Rolf looks, however; Rolf doesn't look like an American werewolf in London.)

**To Reviewers:**

_**Helena: **_Yup, they'll have outfits! (It's not like I'd let them go fighting crime in their birthday suits! Can you imagine the headlines? **"Self-Proclaimed 'Superheroes' Arrested On Charges of Public Indecency!"** No, the Peach Creek Star is not getting _that _honor…) However, 1) No way DD's going to be designing clothes—they'd be asking for fashion trouble there. And 2) I'm not going to use the clothes as a way of controlling their powers—I've already got one power-limiter mechanism in the story (have fun finding it!), so I don't want to use more. Besides, it would feel a bit like a cop-out to me, using clothes as a way to help them control their powers—they have to learn to use their powers the hard way for a reason. So, they'll be dealing with backfires for a while… It'll be fun! (For me, not them. XP) On the other hand, I'll still be trying to give them clothing that Edna Mode would approve of… But, as it is, I've only got Rolf's costume nailed, a shaky outline of the Kankers', and no fashion sense… if you have any ideas, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

_**Yoshermon:**_ I again thank you for your reviews. First off, I say I must agree with you—I have seen the same on this site, and it is… annoying, to say the least, especially when authors start having _conversations_ with the characters—or worse, characters from canons _other_ than the ones in the story. *sigh* Isn't that what the profile is for? (Well, really, it isn't, but it is a more appropriate place than annoying one's readers.)

Secondly, on "nitpicks". I have already begun to reconsider my decision not to edit previously published chapters, at least on the small scale, especially for about chapter ten and forward—at many points, these recent chapters have been difficult to work with, making it harder to focus on the details. So, don't let my preference not to change my chapters deter you—any nitpicks that are mentioned in reviews might still be acted upon. Further, I would rather catch flaws before they can become a trend.

Thirdly, I appreciate your approval of my take on their superpowers. I thought that letting them ease into their powers made the most sense—including their lack of control. Little kids have to babble before they learn to talk, right? And people grow up not at the same rate, even if they were born on the same day. The process of human development is irregular and full of oddities, so why shouldn't superpowers? It just seemed more natural to let the powers manifest gradually, and even let some of their abilities go undiscovered, rather than have our protagonists just suddenly get these powers, fully formed, and face the Big Bad's or a mook the next chapter, as seems to be the trend. (Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but still—thirteen-year-olds in the process of, on average, a week-long adventure, gaining near-total competence with their powers? At that rate of growth, they would be on the level with demigods by the age of twenty-five! What need would they have for a team?)

Fourthly, I am already trying to avoid falling into the 'Edd the leader' trap, for the reasons you have said, and also because it really doesn't fit Edd's character—he's the scientist, not the politician or General. He only takes on the 'leader' role when no one else is up to or suited for the task. That is one of the aims of this and the next few chapters, in fact—to start re-establishing the social structure. Keeping in mind "The Eds are Coming", what do you think about the roles of the Kids? There is still one more who has yet to be established…

Fifthly, as Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy _is_ a comedy, I am trying to work in humor where it _can_ fit. I do appreciate you informing me that the scene was humorous, though; it encourages me to add more.

Sixthly, in both of those cases, the witness whose point of view we are following is _Eddy_. Wondering about Ed doing weird stuff (which, for Ed, really _is_ an "everyday thing") is pretty low on his list (for the latter instance, he was more concerned about the seagull splat on his face); in the former, he didn't really have _time_ to think about that—again, his beautiful face was in jeopardy. Mind, Eddy is hardly known for his attention span, unless it concerns money or jawbreakers. His shifting of focus from one thing to the next without giving thought to details that _we_ would find important just seemed…like him. Further, I believe that Ed, who at one point has been described as 'cartoon randomness incarnate' (I forget where), wouldn't mention his own powers—or rather, _remember_ to mention them, or if he did, he wouldn't want to. Remember his line, "A pigeon once unhidden can never be unrevealed" (Chapter 3)? He equates having superpowers with having to keep them secret, even from his friends. That said, I'll be keeping your warning in mind—while I do believe I have addressed the aforementioned issues in this chapter, I really do see your point. While having random or disjointed parts _may_ be in character for certain points of view, I really shouldn't be letting it interfere with the flow of the rest of the story. So thanks.

Seventhly, thank you for the technical advice. I really wasn't sure about the division of dialogue into separate paragraphs, and was too lazy to go back and check in books I had read that had done that. As you can see, I have gone back and split up the paragraphs based on your input. I also went back and adjusted my attempt at satire that you had critiqued in the second-to-last paragraph of your review so that the Grammar Gestapo don't have a reason to arrest me. ;P Irony and sarcasm do not translate well into the written format, I see…

Eighthly, actually, that information dump _is_ going to be quite plot-relevant—it summarizes what the kids know about their own situation, and alludes to the enemies/unknown factors they may be facing…or at least _think_ they will be facing. I am sure I could have found a way to fit it in, but this was the most concise format for getting the information across that I could think of.

Ninthly, who says that the kids actually _understand_ what is being said? Eddy and Ed have spaced out, and Jonny… Who knows where Jonny's head is? I believe we all remember Rolf's rant in "Too Smart for His Own Ed"—it really says a lot about Rolf's views of formal education. Jimmy and Sarah probably are not old enough to know half the vocabulary he's using. That's half the reason why he passed out those pamphlets—to give kids a clue to what he's saying. The rest of them probably are fishing through the slew of words for answers, if only because it's relevant to them. I'd guesstimate that most of them would fail, aside from Ed, the sci-fi buff (who by now is probably used to translating techno-blabble, and seems to actually have an enormous vocabulary, as evidenced by the boomerang episode and his performance in the spelling bee ("Too Smart for His Own Ed"))—and _he's_ not paying attention. Thus, Kevin, I figured, would get more out of Edd's report than the rest, because of his background watching '60 Minutes', as alluded to in the series bible. Remember the others' tendency to follow the exposition of anyone who seems to know what he's talking about—even if that someone is Ed ("Boom Boom Out Goes the Ed"). The rest just know that Double D knows what he's talking about, and let their equivalent of the professional do the work on all the sciencey stuff. Social striation yet again.

Lastly, their seriousness isn't unprecedented—the series has demonstrated the kids' ability to sober up and focus when the need arises… and I thought I made the need clear in the first five or so chapters. If nothing else, Rolf's sudden case of 'Lycanthropy In Blue" should have been enough to trigger general neighborhood alert. It should start to lighten up now that they are fairly confident that no one is being possessed/cursed/turned into cybernetic living weapons of war… (Or ARE they?)

Hope you liked this chapter; thanks again for the review.

~The Arcticourt Spellwright


	13. Chapter XII—The Last Ed

**Disclaimer: **_**See Prologue**_

**Trial By Ed**

**Chapter XII: The Last Ed**

The sterile white tiles of the Clark household's kitchen rang with the rapping of sharp steel blade against sturdy cutting board…the scrape-pounding of metal against varnished wood…and the whispers, rising from the greased pan, that followed. The scraping rhythm of a whisk, fervently beating against glazed ceramic. The hissing of mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and fresh garlic sautéing over the modified Bunsen burners placed atop the electric stovetop as a substitute gas-lit flame. Then the hot pan was set aside, and the egg, firmly beaten with an expert hand, poured smoothly into separate skillets. Then came the cheeses—two different cheddars, a Jack, and two other cheeses only Rolf could pronounce, shredded on site—onto the fluffing dish, melting or browning on impact, followed by the prepared vegetables, spread evenly over the yellow surface, and a pale dusting of powdered parmesan. The warm smell of cooking egg and cheese emanated the rooms and corridors of 217 Rathink Avenue, wafting through the walls and rising through the rafters, finding its way into the ventilation system and meandering up the nostrils of the eight onlookers gathered at the threshold or pacing the periphery, all watching in quiet reverence…

Eddy Murray was Making Omelets.

…Now, the hoard was being driven out of the kitchen—Rolf included—and out of harm's way (for the omelet's sake, that is). It was time to flip the first one, and, in the short Ed's opinion, it was hard enough to flip an omelet over a Bunsen burner when one must stand on a chair to reach over the countertop _without_ the sharks circling around and making it hard to focus.

Relived of the distraction, Eddy did just that—tuning into the omelet, he grabbed the plate he had set aside and placed it over the skillet, food-side first. Minding his balance, he took hold of the skillet by the handle, the platter by the bottom, flipped them over, removed the skillet, leaving the omelet behind on the plate, and with the spatula scraped it, cooked side up, vegetable-side down, back into the skillet… Now, for the other one… Lather, rinse, repeat. By the time the second omelet had been flipped, the first was ready to be taken off the fire… Eddy slid it onto the flipping plate, set it aside, and grabbed a fresh platter for the second… Second omelet done, Eddy placed it aside, and turned off the Bunsen burners from the gas line—no sense risking a Double D Hissy-Fit™.

…Speaking of, how was Sockhead doing? Eddy frowned, and leaned up against the counter, cleanup forgotten. For the past hour, he had been keeping his mind too busy to worry about the guy, currently lying unconscious—_again_—on his bed…and, _again_, probably in some screwy way—it had been Ed, after all, who had carried him back from the swimming hole and up to his room, _again_. Of course, that line of thought was proof in the pudding for Eddy that his strategy to keep his mind off things by keeping busy had been working—when making his favorite food, Eddy had little time to think about other things. But now, waiting for the omelets to settle, he had nothing better to do—cleaning would only be a bust, as Double D would inevitably go in and re-clean whatever had been used, anyway… _He actually _wants_ to clean—so, why not let him? I sure don't. _It was only common sense, in Eddy's not-so-humble opinion, but it nonetheless made him feel sort of guilty, leaving the dishes to a friend who wasn't even awake… Eddy broke off that line of thought, and forced himself to reflect on something else instead. Something happier. Like himself.

Turning on the faucet, he began mechanically scrubbing the mixing bowls as his mind escaped the monotony, his attention turning inward, into his reflections.

In the year since the Brother Incident and the Eds' acceptance by the 'non-pariah' group, the other residents of the cul-de-sac had quickly learned something about the head-of-a-talking-footstool Edboy that the trio had known for years—that Eddy, despite his 'F' in Culinary Arts, could _cook_. Like a pro. Before the Incident, it had been limited primarily to omelets—his family's true area of expertise, apparently—but following his stint in culinary school—some summer school cooking class 'for teens'—during the subsequent "Year Without A Summer Vacation", he had quickly been nominated for the prestigious title of Cul-de-sac Cook, succeeding his meat-minded predecessor, Rolf. The resident supplier of fresh produce hadn't complained, and so his newly publicized talent had cemented his and his friends' (the 'Neighborhood Smart Guy' and 'Ed'—a more fitting word for the lump has yet to be produced by the English language—respectively), popularity.

Even after all that, though, Eddy still liked making omelets best. To Eddy, omelets weren't just omelets—they were _Murray_ omelets. That is, they were light-and-fluffy-never-soggy, lightly-spicy-never-bland, six-cheeses-and-a-meat-and-whatever-you-can-fit, can-feed-'ya-all-day-and-not-get-old, takes-eight-eggs-and-a-custom-skillet-to-make-just-ONE Omelets. The kind his grandma used to make, that his dad made, the kind that he was now making for his friends with whatever Rolf could scrape up from his yard. The kind of omelet that no ketchup would _ever _dare touch. The kind of food a guy'd make while waiting for a friend to regain consciousness.

For Eddy, this was Comfort Food™.

For the Kids, this was Good Eating™.

For Ed, this was the Floppy Yellow UFO.

For Double D… Well, who knows what this was to Double D—the guy eats _garbanzo paste_, for crying out loud! Heck, he went ballistic the last time Eddy had tried cooking at his house—something about mixing milk and meat, or some weird OCD thing like that. _Sure,_ he had said it was 'cultural' or something—but Eddy knew better. _Man, that guy's got issues. That's why he needs me around—to keep him from getting even more uptight and going postal. _

_Or going and getting himself _martyred_, _his more cynical side said. _Practically did today. _Eddy reluctantly agreed.

It wasn't just Double D's fault—he hadn't volunteered until he had seen no one else was willing to go and be Test Dummy Numero Uno. And Kevin, of course, also had had a hand—it had been he who had pointed out to Mr. Morals that since it was his idea to do the experimenting, perhaps he should go and be the experimentee! Well, that had gone well—they had found the secret to unlocking 'reflexive' superpowers, alright—ya think about them. But not too much, or you spazz out. It had only taken three volleys of rocks, a salami-on-rye sandwich and a sponge, and Eddy and Kevin getting into a spat about whistling (Eddy still swore that he was the better whistler of the two…not that anyone could compete with Lee Kanker, who had knocked them both out of the park literally and figuratively with her 'Horatio Hornblower' imitation…) to figure _that _out.

Double D had been pretty pleased with his success, and came up with a few more suggestions to test power control. Eddy had actually volunteered to go first—to give his wimpy friend a chance to warm up and all… Well, Eddy learned that he didn't have to think about running at superspeed any more than he did for regular running, and that he could run over water and force fields… and that it made him very hungry. Double D had said something about 'metabolic expenditure' or something… just a fancy name for 'body needs fuel, faster body needs even more fuel', as far as Eddy cared. Anyway, he had finished his 'test' already planning out lunch. _…A takeout service! That's it!_ …No. That wouldn't work. Barely paying attention to his own yap, he grumbled something about secret identities keeping super-speeders from getting ticketed for traffic violations.

…His 'Inner Double D'—what Freud would call the 'superego'—was telling him he was getting off track. _Alright, alright. Focusing already._ So, anyway. Double D went up against the blonde Kanker next—as it turned out, when they say she's a 'bag of wind' they mean it _quite literally._ Eddy chuckled; that was just too rich. On the plus side, though, Edd had decided to try and cut off his own air, and discovered that it isn't simply an overturned fishbowl—that it was more of a mesh; the amount of air that enters through would never be low enough to be dangerous…it was almost as if his invisible fields were _thinking_, or something. _Figures. Sockhead's little _toe_ probably does more thinking than Lumpy, sometimes. _Anyway, the Kanker Hairball had taken over from there, first testing out those earthquakes—yes, that he was currently _evicted_ was **totally** her fault!—and then scooped the rock out from under his fee—force field. Guy had freaked out when he realized he was standing in midair, practically fainted, dropped the shield, fallen into the crater, and got knocked out on a stray rock left over from the throwing gallery, or something.

More guilt-ifying was that Mrs. Clark hadn't been surprised to see her son come back 'dead from the neck up'. What was it that she said? _"It doesn't surprise me that Eddward has overexerted himself—he was up all night, I reckon. I only wish he were a little more careful…"_ Yeah. Talk about overbearing—and she wasn't even home most of the time! Edd's weird hero-worship of his Nobel Prize-Material parents had ensured they would always be in his head…

Eddy's fingers, reaching for another bowl to scrub, found none, jarring Eddy from his musings. "Sweet!" Suddenly, the water running over his hand steamed up into his face—Eddy jerked his head back. _What the…?_ He quickly fumbled to turn off the water, wincing, and began rummaging through the drawers for something to cut the omelets with.

"GYEEAAAAH!" Eddy, caught off guard, fumbled with the Canadian Squirt Gun he was holding. He wasn't the only one startled, however.

"What was _that_?" Sarah's shout drifted in from the other room.

"Double D's up!" Eddy smirked; Ed was right. _So _that's _how Sockhead is doing…_ He almost wished he was in there to see the look on his friend's face…

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Marie Kanker was perched atop her Edd's drafting table, _Robot Repair _lying abandoned beside her, torn between amusement, bemusement, and annoyance. Right now, the annoyance was winning. She had just been _reading _when Double D suddenly sat up, took one look around, and screamed out at the top of his lungs. Why? Marie had no idea—nothing was broken, no one had died, and she wasn't even _near _his bed… A pause.

The yell had stopped. Now if only her ears would stop ringing… She huffed. "Geez, I can't even _read_?"

Edd stared at her speechlessly, still gasping for breath. "I apologize; my reflexes got the better of…" Suddenly, he noticed something down towards her feet, and pointed it out, voice tinged with horror. "You still have your shoes on."

Puzzled, Marie said, "Yeah…So?"

Edd sighed, as if the point of his comment was obvious. "You would be best to leave my room before Mother arrives." Now it was Marie's turn to stare in alarm—why did the way he said that remind her of a mother bear coming to protect her cub?

Edd, following his usual rule of "do not approach, address, look at, or make eye contact with fangirl", mistook her prolonged silence for skepticism. Nervously, he quickly explained, "If she finds you, not only will I have to subject my room to a thorough series of sanitation regimens, but you may be subject to a series of injections that would eat your family out of house and home…" He winced, and Marie scowled at the reminder of her family's financial issues.

Awkwardly, Double D pointed out one last thing. "Oh, and Mother is a notoriously light sleeper—I'd wager you have less than thirty seconds left to leave my room before she enters the hallway and makes escaping undetected impossible." The blue-haired Kanker's eyes widened, and Edd was sent spinning like a gyroscope as she brushed past him in a mad dash for the stairs.

Recovering from his dizziness, Edd smiled to himself, amused but pleasantly surprised by the result. _If I had known she would react like that, I would have used the tactic sooner…_ As newly shoed footsteps sounded from down the hall, any lingering smugness was shoved to the back of Edd's mind as he wracked his brain to find a reasonable explanation for his scream.

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Eddy had _finally _found the pizza cutter—never used, it had been sentenced to the boxes in the cabinets over the fridge where the Napoleon-esque couldn't reach—and was about to start cutting up his creations when Double D came in, followed by his cyclopean stalker.

"…loitering at the foot of the stairs is _hardly _avoiding notice," Eddy heard him scold. "It was just fortunate that Matilda had… Ah, Eddy," he broke off, voice suddenly revealing a hint of nervousness.

Eddy looked away from the counter. "You're up, Double D," he acknowledged. "_Now _what?"

"Mother's coming; I'd rather not have her enter the dining room, lest she overhear any conversations on…the Matter." Though Edd's voice grew hushed on the last word, Eddy could practically _hear _the capital 'M'.

"So you need a distraction, then," he translated, quickly formulating a plan using what little he knew about his sock-headed friend's mother.

"And fast," the middle-Kanker said, pulling the rest of herself in from the threshold; "She's on the landing." _Drat. Looks like fetching Ed's out…new plan._ Eddy quickly revised his plan just as the overbearing adult walked in, lab coat and all.

"Hey, Mrs. C," Eddy greeted, donning his best 'nice neighbor kid' look. "You're out of eggs…" He trailed off nervously as the household matriarch's right eyebrow raised to her hairline. Barely stuttering, he bribed, "You get first slice."

She smiled slightly, politely accepting the plate Eddy held out—more like shoved into—her face. "Why thank you, Edward."

Eddy turned back to the counter. "Don't mention it, Mrs. C." Done carving the omelets, he began doling the slices out onto paper plates.

"Would you like some mustard with that?" Ed asked, appearing out of nowhere and rummaging through the fridge.

Double D's mother's nose crinkled upward—mustard on _eggs?_—and she backed up, taking stock of the situation with a hasty but analytical eye. Deeming everything to be in order, she grabbed a fork from the counter and vanished into the living room. Eddy could hear her talking to herself. "…nice friends, if a tad slow…" Her footsteps sounded down the stairs.

Once she was safely out of earshot, Edd said, "Why thank you, Ed." Eddy shot him a look, wondering why Edd, who on any other day would have given up his electron microscope for a day with even one of his parents home, would thank Ed for driving the misanthrope off. Double D shot him a look back that told him not to question it.

Ed, missing the clandestine discourse, had his own question on his mind. "Did she call you slow, Eddy?" Marie, on the far threshold, cackled, Eddy nearly snorted into the spatula, and even Double D chuckled.

Then Eddy's brow furrowed, regaining his focus. "Okay, back to business—we've got lunch to serve." Emphasizing his point, he stacked a couple of plates on a cookie sheet before heading over to the sliding glass door. Ed grabbed a stack of plastic glasses, merrily following Eddy out onto the back porch.

After a moment's hesitation after them, Edd turned around and dug through the cabinets for a pitcher.

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"BEHOLD—the FOOD of the GODS!" Eddy announced, slamming the plate-loaded metal makeshift tray down, fully channeling his long-honed knack for flashy showmanship in the clamor and clonk. "Take one, any one; they're all the same."

"This is _lunch_?" A certain blue-haired Kanker, who had had other things on her mind than the food during her passage through the kitchen, interjected, grudgingly impressed.

Hearing her, the other blue-haired diner leaned back in his chair, sighing wistfully, mind drifting back to better times. "In the Old Country, this would be but a small part of the midday meal."

May snorted. "Well, we'd call it _dinner_."

Rolf shook his head amusedly; with the truce held over the table-of-mutual-eating protecting him from their savage ways, the metal-mockery-of-a-caravan girls were really quite humorous with their strange ways. Nonetheless, he found himself pitying them—if the measly amount set before him was what they would call their main meal, then surely their family must be in a state of famine! Surely, then, being in the presence of the bountiful harvests of the cul-de-sac must be a strange experience for them. Surely Rolf, himself a foreigner, could empathize. Trying to assist them in their state of transition, he helpfully explained, "Mere appetizers, Kanker-girls," before digging in. They stared at the Son-of-a-Shepherd, gobsmacked.

…Then, with a nervously-glanced nonverbal consensus, the neighborhood hellions opted to pretend that they hadn't heard anything. Lee and May went for their portions; Marie hit the glass…

…and promptly spat it back out, gagging. "What _is _this stuff?" she demanded, lifting the still mostly-full glass for emphasis.

"Water," ten voices answered in unison; Ed said "Plastic."

Marie wrinkled her nose. "Jokes on you—this tastes like something that came out of…" She paused, trying to find a suitable word for—oh, to heck with it. "It tastes like it's been run through the science classroom," she stated bluntly.

Edd twitched, and rubbed his upper arm embarrassedly—he was _sure _that the city-supplied drinking water did not run through the same pipes as the home-sanitized double-distilled H2O used in The Lab. "The tap…was the filter working?"

"Shouldn't'a made a difference—you used it in the coffee this morning," Lee observed, deliberately omitting that, unlike these people, _they _didn't have filtered water.

Bemusedly, Marie nodded at her sister. "Yeah…" The 'but' implicit was not missed as she returned her attention to her unwilling crush. "It tastes like pool water and dentist office," she stated bluntly.

Connecting the dots, Edd's interest peaked. "Chlorine and fluoride…common additives to the public water supply…Anything else?"

A light bulb went off in Marie's head—could her powers and the bad taste in her mouth be linked? "Yeah. It tastes like old pipe." Between bites, Rolf chuckled; that was all? In the farm boy's experience, a little rust never killed anyone.

"What were you doing eating pipes?" Eddy broke in, also missing the point. Edd winced—Ed wasn't the only Ed to plant disturbing images permanently in his head.

Recovering, he said, "That is beside the point, Eddy… You're tasting rust, I believe…" he trailed off, thinking. Pulling out his notebook, he began rationalizing. "You may have a highly increased sensitivity to pollutants in the water—"

"My powers, I got that…" Marie completed, glaring into her glass, growing annoyed.

"And the coffee?" It was May this time. _What's_ with _the Kankers and coffee?_ Eddy wondered.

"It drowned it out, windbag!" Marie snapped, receiving a slug back for her remark. "Hey!"

Before things could escalate, Kevin broke in, "Anyone else got something similar? Like, smelling weird stuff or anything? Not talking to you, Rolf—finish your sandwich." Rolf happily continued wolfing down his still half-alive octopus and salami fodder.

"Everything smells to me, like, way more—it's fun!" As Edd jotted down the addition, May added, "But some sounds tickle."

A pause in the pen. "You're hearing—no, feeling—sound waves moving through the air," Edd reasoned after a moment.

"Cool!"

"Well, at least someone's enjoying this." The blue-haired speaker still had the foul taste of badly purified water in her mouth.

"Shove it, Marie," Lee growled.

"…You could purify it yourself…" Ed suggested, surprising everyone. "Like the Steamster in Wagontracks: The Lost Frontier."

("_Told_ you people watch it, Marie." May's insulted counter-jibe to some long-forgotten argument was pointedly ignored.)

"It _is_ a good idea, though," Edd thought aloud. "I'll get you another glass—," donning latex gloves he picked up the rejected glass and handed the girl a towel, "—and a bowl of water." He stepped over the threshold into the kitchen, over his shoulder adding, "You can distill the water using your powers…think of it as practice." Ignoring the towel, Marie glowered down at her soggy place setting as he disappeared from view, willing it to rise up in steam.

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_Bzzzt._ _Bzzt. Bzzzzt. _

Hearing the familiar buzzing and feeling the vibration on her upper thigh, Nazz checked her belt…Yup. That was her pager ringing. "It's mine," she said, indicating that the others could stop searching their pockets for their own. She checked the number… _Huh? _Baffled that her instructor would be calling her now, she got up from her seat, and headed past Kevin, Jonny and Ed on her way into the house to return the call.

Bumping into Double D, carrying a bowl of water and glass in the opposite direction, she asked whether she could make a call—with his family and its crazy rules, one couldn't ever be sure. As nervous as always, he politely informed her that the guest phone was on the wall by the stairs, before stepping outside. Armed with the info, Nazz found the phone and dialed the dojo.

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Kevin was watching Rolf wolf down his eighth oversized candied beet in a state of horrified awe when Nazz returned from making her call. "So…what was that about?" he asked, trying to take his mind off his voracious friend.

She shrugged, replying, "Class was cancelled for tomorrow, but sensei thought I needed some extra work—keep things regular, ya know? Besides, my stance needs work, and I don't want to get into the habit…" The jock nodded, knowing full well what missing practice could do to one's game. "So, I'm going over in, like, an hour—sorry dude, but I won't be able to come with you and Rolf." Kevin nodded understandingly, and was about to say that it was totally cool, when Ed cut him off.

"'_Class'? _…Oh no." It was not the volume of the utterance that brought the table to silence, but the lack thereof; that such a noisy character as Ed could actually use something lower than an indoor voice underscored the uncharacteristic worry in the murmur.

"Are you well, Ed?" the Eds' 'team medic', as Kevin had ascribed to the dorks' dynamics, concernedly asked.

Ed, still in a rare state of serious awareness of the world, looked into his friend's eyes, and with surprising reason replied, "We can't go to school tomorrow, Double D." Edd stared at him, stuck somewhere between skeptical and stupefied, his mouth hung slightly open.

Kevin, seeing that the most reliable of the dorks was not going to do it, decided it was time to pull interference. "What are you talking about?"

Ed shrugged. "It's the 'Hero's Journey', Kevin. The newbie superhero gets his powers, then goes to school—um," Ed paused, a thousand first volume comics flashing through his Sci-fi- saturated memory banks. Picking up where he left off, "Something bad happens, and it's no corn test." Cue the raising of eyebrows in response to the weird factor increasing. "It happens in all the comic books," Ed ended, settling his argument, oblivious to how ridiculous his sources sounded. Jonny, however, nodded, as did May.

Rolling his eyes, Kevin, putting aside his skepticism, translated, "So, you think if we go to school, we'll get into some kinda trouble. Like what?" Kevin knew his own suspension of disbelief was far less than willing, but knowing who he was dealing with, he had to deal.

Ed skewed up his face in deep thought. "Um…" A pause, while he thought things out in his head. Then he reasoned, "We are government experiments, so it would be the Men in Black, coming to take us back to an underground base where we will be dissected or tested to see how we work." Kevin blinked, surprised—it _sorta_ made sense.

"Well, if that is the case, then would truancy really help?" Edd questioned. "If we are being watched, then any endeavor to avoid the danger would be in vain. But more pertinently, why _would _they? Take any sort of drastic action now, that is. A great deal of money has been invested in us—why not wait until full maturity? Further, assuming they have been observing us, they have had plenty of opportunity to do so—and if they were waiting for our powers to manifest, then, again, why now?" Though the questions were pointed at anyone at the table, Kevin found his mind drawing a blank.

"We could be like cattle, being fattened for the slaughter," Ed theorized darkly; characteristically, Jimmy yeeped at this. "Take us while we're young and weak, take us before we have scattered, take us while we still don't understand." Edd bit his lip anxiously; he had nothing to counter that. Kevin felt a twinge of dread in his gut—there may be something to this.

He stood up. "What are we going to do, then?"

Surprisingly, Double D grimly asserted, "If they are waiting for our powers to manifest, then we must conceal that they have begun to. If, as one might reason based on the assumption that they have been observing us, they already know, we must still hide what our powers can do—even the slightest surprise could be turned to our advantage." He sighed. "We musn't tell anyone, not even our parents—_especially _not our parents." Kevin raised an eyebrow; the dork was suggesting there was something more than just overprotective parents to this. Seeing this, Edd explained, "It is my suspicion—and I have several reasons for it—that our parents must have assented to our experimentation, and therefore are probably in league with, if not actually _being_, the ones who experimented on us."

Lee snorted. "_Your_ folks, maybe—_our _mom's a janitor."

"That hardly excuses her," Edd countered dryly, "as the janitor is perhaps the most essential human resource in a laboratory operation… Even confidential government agencies need cleaning personnel."

"'The great Petri Dish of Life'!" Ed quoted, regaining his old enthusiasm.

Double D shot his friend a grateful smile; "Why thank you, Ed." From across the table, the lead Kanker shot them a deadpan look, but shrugged dismissively.

"Right…so no telling the 'rents," Kevin drawled, trying to steer the conversation back to its original course. "So, pros and cons of going to school and staying home…what are they?" Down on the other side of the table, Edd took out a clipboard and drew up a four-columned tally. Column one was titled, 'Pros for Going'; column two, 'Cons for Going', column three, 'Pros for Staying', and the heading for column four was marked, 'Cons for Staying'.

"At school there will be witnesses—that'll make them think twice about messing with us," Sarah said, much to everyone's surprise. She shrugged, justifying, "I've _seen_ my brother's movies enough." The others blinked, the surprise dissipating. Double D made a mark under the first column.

"Those witnesses could turn into hostages or collateral, Sarah," Ed, fed on the same cinematic fodder, pointed out, troubled. One point in the second column.

"We all know the territory around here firsthand, which is more than what we can expect from them," Kevin thought aloud. "We'd have the home team advantage." Another point was tallied in the second column.

"That could be said for the school as well," Edd pointed out, "Given that we have been in attendance for at least three years each." The high school, by a fortunate twist of fate, had been veritably destroyed during freshman orientation (naturally, this had been Ed's doing), forcing Peach Creek Elementary/Middle to be temporarily converted into a makeshift K-12 school. Edd added his own mark in the first column.

"Yeah, but there's walls and rooms—we could get cornered," Jonny argued. Edd added a point in the third column.

Marie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well you're _you_—you practically live in the woods anyway," she noted. "What about the rest of us—we're not squirrels!" First point, fourth column.

Lee nodded. "If we can get stuck, so can they," she pointed out. "…And they won't fit in the ventilation shafts," she asserted smugly. A pro for going.

"Besides," she added, "If we aren't at school, they'll come after us. We'll know they're coming, whichever way—but if we bite the bullet and face 'em there, we'll know where and when, and won't be caught off guard so easily."

"The worst place to be in on the field of war," Ed agreed, thinking back to history class.

"Beats getting picked off one by one," Kevin conceded, settling the cold matter.

"It sounds like we're going to be voting on this…why can't we just choose for ourselves what we want to do?" Sarah suddenly asked.

"Safety in numbers, Sarah," Ed pointed out immediately. "Like ducks."

Ignoring the last, the Kanker strategist observed, with her usual bluntness, "…would make resisting impossible—two groups, no communication, no organization. No way it'd work."

"I am currently using a system of devices to jam outgoing signals from any devices in the area or planted on us to facilitate observation; in addition to enabling us to speak in privacy, it should have the additional benefit of disrupting the enemy's communications," Edd added. "However, it covers only a limited range—a diameter of about three houses—and I have made only one set. Any one of us outside of this area would become an easy target."

Kevin raised his eyebrows—while he had assumed the smart Ed had found a way to ensure their movements wouldn't be observed by the enemy surveillance, he hadn't expected something as advanced as what he was suggesting. Nazz shot him a hurried look, telling him that she needed to leave soon… Kevin had to agree; they had to wrap this up. "So, Double D—what's the score?"

"We have four arguments for attending school, two arguments for not attending, one against going, two against not attending," he listed, then simplified: "In short, we have six points supporting attendance, but only three supporting not attending."

Brow furrowing, Kevin digested this. "…Two to one, eh?" he murmured, not expecting an answer.

"Indeed," Edd, however, replied.

"…Do we even _need_ a vote now?" Marie asked, growing impatient. "The right answer's obvious."

Edd glared. "Of course we do…don't we?" he added falteringly, head turning back to the football captain, who shrugged.

"Sort of…" he replied, then said to all, "If there is anyone against this or who would rather go it alone, speak now."

Unsurprisingly, there was no dissent—between the support of the avid football biker and the colder authority of the lead bully, it wasn't really expected, anyway.

Consensus decided, Nazz got up and left to prepare for her Karate training session. Kevin, looking after her, returned his focus to the remainder. "So, we have until the parents get home to prepare for tomorrow. I'm going with Rolf to the gym to work with his powers—any other takers?"

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**Author's Note:** Somehow, this chapter (which was supposed to be one chapter) grew into something twice its intended size. Ergo, I have split it up into two. And before anyone says anything, yes, I've figured Nazz takes Karate—the times we've seen her fight in self-defense, she appears to be using some sort of martial art…and, given her ability to quote the Workers' Rights Act, I doubt that we should underestimate her. Anyway, further comment shall be given in the next chapter.

~The Arcticourt Spellwright


	14. Chapter XIII—Last Minute Ed

**Double Chapter Alert****!  
><strong>For those readers who have just clicked to the latest chapter, please check to see if you have read the previous. Thank you.

**Disclaimer: **_**See Prologue**_

**Trial By Ed**

**Chapter XIII: Last Minute Ed**

Thirty minutes later a clear-centered circular portal opened up in the woods outside of Peach Creek Middle School. Out of it stepped Jonny, who held Plank up above his head like a submarine's periscope, rotating him clockwise and counterclockwise before bringing him back down to face level. "You see anything, buddy?" A moment of informative silence ensued. "Yeah, I can't sense anything either." Lowering the yellowed wood into a more secure one-armed grip, he beckoned with his now-freed right hand to the group watching from the other side of the wormhole. Coast clear, his comrades passed through: first a cautious Kevin, followed by a wary Rolf in his bathrobe, Eddy feigning calm, and a twitchy Double D carrying a backpack full of equipment that he had assembled while Rolf had been retrieving some more appropriate clothing from his home. Lastly, bringing up the rear, came Ed, who closed the portal with a snap of two yellowish fingers.

"Good work, Jonny," acknowledged Kevin, his mind in full 'mission mode'. "Keep an eye out for us, will you? For…whatever."

The thirteen-year-old Urban Ranger saluted with a good-natured "Roger!"

The 'team leader' grunted his approval, and turned around. "Hey, Double D, your turn…Double D?" _That's weird—I could've sworn he was there just a minute ago._

"Looking the wrong way, Caesar," Eddy quipped, pointing past Kevin to the school. "He's doing his bit." Kevin, realizing he was not pointing at the school, but somewhere below where it came on the field of vision, followed the finger down to a bush, with black-clad, red-socked legs sticking out of it… _Ah. Right. _Kevin figured he must be somehow tampering with the school's wiring. "He'll be done in a sec."

Less than a minute later, the sock-headed brainiac extracted himself from the bushes, returned a few tools—among them, Kevin could see clearly that he had used a trowel and a wire cutter—to his bag, and pattered back to them. Without a word, he pulled a compact laptop out of the duffle, opened it up, and began clacking away at the keys with the intensity of a jungle cat stalking his prey.

It was tense work, Kevin could see—the dork had warned them all beforehand that what he was doing was quite probably even more criminal than the 'mere trespassing' the rest were about to perform. Fittingly, they all allowed their cracker the silence he needed to concentrate on the job.

At last, the rule-loving Ed emitted a hushed "Aha!" The neighborhood commander raised an eyebrow. The shy Edd sheepishly grinned. "We're in."

Kevin nodded, approving. "Good. Now Eddy—" He trailed off, feeling the slipstream ruffle his jacket.

"Hey! What's taking ya!" Edd shouted glibly, holding open the gate, twirling the picked-open padlock on his finger.

Grudgingly, Kevin couldn't help but admire that kid's lock-picking skills. Following a running Ed and a skipping Jonny, an increasingly nervous Rolf and the two shorter Eds, Kevin experimentally ordered the lock to shut itself…and once he had aligned it, it did, but only then. The padlock apparently was less 'intelligent' than his bike. This surprised Kevin—there was a difference?

Now at the back door of the gym, it was Kevin's turn to get them through. He pulled out his key to the gymnasium, and unlocked the door for the others. Then, the six boys and a board took off down the hallway at a steady trot.

Making a corner, Kevin suddenly registered something coming into his head. Alarmed at what he 'heard', he slowed down, letting the weakest Ed catch up. "The cameras are still seeing us," he stated, confused "Didn't you do something about that?"

The other nodded, now confused himself. "I did, Kevin. The cameras are on a closed-circuit network, which I broke into. The footage is being sent out of the network to my computer, where I will save it to disc and obliterate all other traces of it. The signal being recorded on the mainframe is actually from yesterday. Honestly, Kevin, what brought this on?" He sounded somewhat hurt, as if Kevin had slighted his intelligence.

Kevin bit his lip, trying to explain _how _he knew something was up. "The cameras told me they are still watching us…I can't really explain what I mean by 'told' except that they did, so don't bother," he interrupted, cutting off Edd's query before it could reach his vocal cords. "…but they are still seeing us—you know, working—and… they know you hacked their system."

Edd shrugged. "Ah. That is to be expected, really—in fact, it's a rather nice confirmation that my method is working, Kevin." Kevin blinked, not following. Edd smiled warmly, and explained, "While I couldn't do anything about the cameras—tampering of course would be a dead giveaway that something had happened to them—but I could do something about the data stream. The data is being sent onto my computer and is being replaced before it can be recorded. Rest assured, it is taken care of."

It seemed to satisfy Kevin, who sped up his stride, narrowly beating Ed, who had taken the fore, out the locker room entrance and onto the floor of the gym proper. Standing in the center of the court, the others began to assemble around him, waiting for the last to arrive.

The last to exist was Rolf, who had stopped to dump his footwear on the floor and hang his robe on a hook in the boy's locker room.

Even thick-skinned Ed could sense the anticipation from the more eager of their number: with the "star" present, the "show" could now begin.

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The anticipatory mood did not last long; as usual, Ed ruined the atmosphere. "Nice toga, Rolf!"

Eddy took another look at Rolf and, registering the sight, burst out laughing. "_Eddy_," Edd hissed, admonishing him.

Kevin maintained a little more self-dignity, plastering his own amusement with a look of disgust. "Is Rolf wearing a _dress_?" Jonny and Ed joined Eddy in laughing, to Double D's acute exasperation.

Indeed, it could have been an easy mistake. Though the lower part of the double-width of cloth was wrapped around the young Rom's waist and fastened with a heavy belt, the upper portion had been brought up and draped over the sixteen-year-old's shoulder, which could have contributed to the semblance to an extremely baggy dress… Edd doubted it was the full reason, though; it seemed more likely that the case of mistaken identity had more to do with its rather uncharacteristic coloration: a medley of brown, oranges, and red, with thin crossing stripes of green repeated in the pattern.

It clashed horribly with Rolf's blue hair.

"It's called a _belted plaid_, Kevin, Ed," the polite Ed sharply corrected, glaring at the four. "The ancestor of the modern kilt. Although, it does seem odd…Rolf, _where_ did you get that?"

Rolf, who for once did not look insulted at the seeming slights to his family honor, shrugged. "It was sent to Rolf as a gift from his cousin in the land of Scots, made from the first surplus fleece of his flock." Abashedly, he whispered into Edd's ear, "He is, as you say, 'color-blind'?"

Edd chuckled, assured now that his culturally-sensitive friend would not take offense. "You have my sympathies, Rolf." Rolf nodded, and chuckled as well, albeit in a note that suggested a fuel of bitter mirth. "I take it you don't get much use from it—is that why you are wearing it now?" he asked.

Rolf shook his head. "So simple, Sock-On-The-Head Edboy. Rolf wears the garment because it lacks a bottom, and Rolf's tail stretched out his trousers like Nana's old pantaloons."

"…Oh," came the awkward reply, not quite knowing what to say but appreciating his logic. Then, he noticed the silence; the others had stopped laughing.

"Alright, Rolf, it's been fun, but it's _still_ your turn," Kevin announced—the reminder proved redundant but necessary to bring the attentions variously diverted by culture, clothing, colors, and cheese back to the point of their mission.

Ed grinned—he had always wanted to see a werewolf transformation—and stepped forward, eager to assist.

Edd grimaced; he had seen enough of Ed's horror movies to know the transformation was supposed to be very painful. Nonetheless, he pulled a notepad and pen out of hammerspace, trusting that his hijacked video feeds would provide visuals for future reference.

Eddy, unawares, grabbed Ed's video camera from Double D's duffle and, poising it to film, pressed 'record'.

Kevin growled. "Well?" he prodded, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Kevin, give Rolf some _time_," Edd scolded, reasoning, "It's not like he's done this before… Consciously, that is," he amended.

Ed, who had been quietly rambling through all the information he had collected by watching his favorite movie genres, suggested, "What Rolf needs to do is unlock his inner Wolf."

Rolf stepped away from Ed, eyes widening. "The Doggy-doo-doo Edboy is _indeed_ in league with the wolf—the Son of a Shepherd should have known…" Contrasting to Kevin's expression of non sequitur and Jonny's awkward backstep, Eddy and Edd exchanged alarmed looks—Rolf was taking this the wrong way: the scion of nomads looked about ready to attack their deceptively lupine idiot of a friend and initiate another round of wolf trials.

"Hi Rolf!"

Ed's line, a throwback to the Gerta Incident, struck a nerve in the advancing Rolf, who froze in his tracks. All present could see the wheels in his head turning…

Rolf sighed, and knelt down at Ed's feet. (Ed, misconstruing the gesture as usual, remarked "But I like my job"—a comment ignored by his foreign employer.)

The others realized they were missing something. Jonny, Eddy, and Kevin looked to Double D, expecting the kid with the book on Old World customs to have a clue; Edd, however, shrugged helplessly—he was just as in the fog as they were.

Head bowed in supplication, Rolf implored, "Teach me, Edboy…" Ed's mouth made an 'O' of comprehension, and the yellow-skinned nincompoop began to eagerly recount all that he knew of werewolves and transformations, from movies to thought experiments done by bored college kids.

There was a moment of general comprehension between the onlookers, an "aha!" moment. It made sense, now—of all of them, Ed, for all his loose ties on reality, was by far the most experienced in such matters. Even if he wasn't affiliated with wolves, he sure knew how to act like one. If he was given the chance to be a monster, he would play the part to a 'T' and then take it to the nth level… It was the veritable library on the fantastic that he had tucked away in his head that enabled him to take method acting to new heights. In varying amounts of words centering along the same themes, each of the bystanders came to the same basic thought: Ed was probably the most important resource Rolf had to deal with his issue.

The more forward-thinking of them reasoned that Ed could possibly become an invaluable resource for more practical matters they may face. (Surprisingly, their resident thinker found no feeling of being threatened in his position—just relief and a sense of liberation that he no longer had to alone bear the burden of providing answers.) In all their cases but one, however, _something_ snapped into perspective.

For the most solid of them, however, it already had.

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A thought occurred to Kevin out of the clear blue, as many inconveniently forgotten memories do; Kevin groaned and slapped his palm to his brow—how could he forget? Another thought trickled in, reminding him of what he could do, and suddenly he relaxed slightly as a look of concentration rippled across his face. After a moment, he zoned back in on the universe, mild, cautious satisfaction tinting his features. Then, he got up from his seat on the gymnasium bleachers to seek out a certain scammer.

He found Eddy, as he had anticipated, scoping out the far corners of the arena for lost change; some things just didn't change.

Kevin looked back over his shoulder to check on the others' progress—no, Ed and Rolf were still trying out new projects; he still had time. Surreptitiously, he slipped beside the short Ed and whispered his request into his ear.

The often ill-tempered loudmouth didn't fail to disappoint. "Seriously? You've gotta be kidding…" Kevin's expression told him otherwise. "…You owe me," he grumbled, but kept the volume low.

"Jawbreaker's waiting," Kevin bribed. Eddy's eyes shot open at the word, and took off before you could say "flash"—running literally _over _Double D in the process.

Once again, Edd found himself thanking all three hundred and sixty-five gods he could name for his force field reflex. Rubbing his head reflexively, he walked over in the direction he had been going and asked Kevin, "What was _that_?"

Kevin shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. "Bribed him with a jawbreaker," he replied nonchalantly, as if what had just happened was a normal occurrence.

A small voice in the back of Double D's mind noted that it might well _become_ one.

Nevertheless, the ever-the-perfectionist Ed couldn't just leave well enough alone. "Kevin, _why _did you bribe Eddy with a jawbreaker?"

Kevin supposed it was a testament to the smarter Ed's character that he had omitted the tacit '…without me?' he presumed should have been at the end of the line. "Because you can't teleport and The Lump takes personal requests in chickens and shoes," he deadpans, to Edd's irritation.

"Kevin, I may have some effective form of defensive mechanism, but I do not appreciate being run over," the intelligent Ed intoned. Kevin rolled his eyes.

"It's an _experiment_, Dork—_you'd_ understand tha—" Kevin was harshly cut off as Eddy suddenly slammed into him, knocking the wind out of the jock. "Hey! Watch it…huh? I'm alive?" Cue a curious look at the resident know-it-all, who shrugged.

"Don't look at me, Kevin—I was taken just as much by surprise as you were." Indeed, it was a puzzle, but one that could wait.

"Sorry, Kev," Eddy said, before offhandedly adding, "And yeah, the door was locked…"

Both Edd and Eddy were taken aback by Kevin's jubilant "WHOOP! Sweet!" and suddenly awkward—he had done something that, according to the Kevin's Code of Coolness, would fall under the Column of Uncool Stuff—"I remotely made the door lock itself with my mind."

Edd clapped, congratulating his fellow Creeker's success. Eddy, however, was still unsatisfied. "Yeah, well, this is nice and all, but…**Where'smy**_**jawbreaker**_?"

The hard sugary orb that was shoved into the unsuspecting loudmouth's face answered that question quite succinctly.

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"Hey, what are you guys doing over here?" A new voice broke in from behind; Kevin and Edd looked around, startled…

"Oh, hello Jonny," Edd breathed, then, noticing something amiss, lifted an eyebrow. "Um…where's Plank?"

Jonny shrugged. "Back watching Rolf and Ed; he's gonna fill me in but you're missing out—Rolf's teeth are all pointy!" The eccentric kid ran off to rejoin his friend on the far end of the court, giggling.

Eddy, Kevin, and Double D looked at each other apprehensively. "Well, it seems Ed has made some progress with Rolf…" Edd voiced unsteadily.

Kevin nodded, growing grim. "Guess we should check it out."

Eddy scowled; now that he had been given time to really think about it, meeting up with a wolf bigger than his brother—even Rolf—didn't sound particularly appealing. "You first," he stated bluntly, looking up defiantly at Kevin.

Kevin smirked. "Scared?" he jibed, taking the lead.

"…_No_," the speedster countered. "My legs are just shorter—I _need_ the head start!" Eddy scowled at the technopath's sudden bark of laughter—Shovelchin had caught his bluff. _Again_.

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As the bickering duo arrived on the scene, they fell in next to Edd, who having had gone ahead of them had frozen up, rigid as Plank, upon his approach. At what, they had only to look forward at their blue-haired friend…

…who was staring at Edd, and now them, about as surprised as they now felt. "Talk about 'Stretch'," Eddy muttered over Kevin's low whistle

While they couldn't see the teeth Jonny had yammered about, before their eyes, Rolf was _shrinking_, much like a soldier relaxing from attention. Only, Kevin noted, he hadn't _been_ in attention—his slouch was one of the few parts of him that wasn't changing as he shrank.

Then, he was back to normal—in size, at least. Kevin had never seen his buddy look so…uncomfortable with his own skin. "Hey, Rolfie—you 'kay, ma—?" he concernedly began to ask.

Ed, however, interrupted, popping up between the newcomers and the shifter. "Aw, guys. Did you _have _to come now? Rolf was just getting it."

"…" Four rather peeved faces glared at him—had Ed had more nerve cells, he would have been _toast_. As it was, the numb-to-brick-walls Edboy turned around and prompted Rolf to try again in the most businesslike manner possible for one who dreams of gravy and kills flies with his pits. Seeing no better alternative, the three incomers joined Jonny on the nearest set of bleachers and waited for the show to restart.

In less than a minute, it began again. It took Edd about thirty seconds more to realize what he was seeing… Upon realization, however, his eyes widened and he leaned forward, transfixed, determined not to miss another second.

It started with the neck, which lengthened slightly—had it been anyone other than Rolf, the growth would have had to be significant. Then, disturbingly, the scapulas seemed to abandon their native joints and _swam _beneath the skin, reorienting themselves at an angle, perching on the corner of the ribcage, jutting out slightly more than a human's would ever and creating a bit of a lump in his back. Then the lumbar curve of the vertebral column flattened from the arc of a '(' into a nearly level ridge continuous with the rest of the spine, pushing Rolf's bare upper body taller and midsection longer. Bereft of the full human mechanism of bipedalism, Rolf lost his balance and fell forward on his chin, grimacing, his teeth clacking together… _Oh. __There's the teeth._ They weren't growing, but reshaping themselves into miniature carnivore dentures.

Then, to Edd's surprise in spite of his own logic, a tail emerged from the kilt, as furless as the rest of Rolf's body. While his more stable fellows looked about ready to heave or throw themselves into a panic, Edd scanned the rest of Rolf's body for any similar developments…and indeed, they were…

As though all the reshaping of existing bones had occurred, Rolf's limbs were now resizing themselves. His upper legs and his shins were shortening, and the heels of his feet were melting away, while the arches of his feet were lengthening…lengthening…lengthening…into second shins…_No, __**hocks**_. His toes, from the ball of the foot outward, were growing, lengthening into a wide, longer platform. Traveling his eyes to the anterior, Edd watched as Rolf's ribs enlarged—thickening, spreading forward rather than out, becoming denser but more loosely attached—and his arms grew thicker and his forearm lengthened. His fingers shrank, though growing thicker, stronger, developing calluses that shaped themselves into pads…

Then his joints started to realign themselves, and that Rolf should have been howling in agony suddenly occurred to Edd, unpleasantly shaking him out of his state of scientific fervor. As Rolf's neck settled on a higher point of his skull, Edd got up, trying to get a better look. From the angle he was now standing, he was looking straight down the inhuman nose, meeting Rolf's still human but growing eyes. In them, he found the answer to his question.

They were glazed over—he was completely out of it.

But as the eyes grew to fit their sockets, Rolf's jaw and lower face stretched out into a classically lupine pointed muzzle, and Rolf's teeth—no, not teeth, _fangs_—grew into their now more spacious jaws. The peace-loving Edd yelped, falling back onto his hard metal seat with a clatter.

From where he had been standing, Ed hissed, lifting a finger to his mouth in an unmistakable "shush" signal.

But Rolf was too far into the transformation to initiate the elastic-like return to full humanity; rather, the process sped up. Within a moment, Rolf's teeth were covered by a reshaping of the flesh around his lips and cheek, which dropped down like a curtain…Rolf's nose hardened and reshaped itself, becoming more canine… the muscles along his neck and shoulders thickened, muscles rippling down into new formations… Rolf's ears migrated up to the top of his skull. The hair all over his body darkened into opaque blue… it thickened and lengthened (only the ridge of blue back hair seemed to remain the same in length)… his nails grew and reshaped themselves into long, hard claws… thick fur broke through the skin of the once-furless palms, sprouting up between the pads… Finally, the tail itself was covered in full by the thick coat.

"…Is it over?" Eddy, who had covertly looked away in disgusted horror at a B-Movie transformation come to life—quietly asked, stealing a cautious peak back. Kevin, frozen to his seat and eyes wide and unblinking by horror, merely gurgled a strangled sound that could have been interpreted as the 'eep' of a platypus with its voice box put in reverse. Jonny, hugging Plank for dear life, bit his lip—while he alone had properly seen Rolf as a 'wolf', he too hadn't been unaffected by witnessing the actual transformation.

Ed, from his close vantage point, slowly shook his head. "No…"

Edd untangled himself from the bench he had so awkwardly fallen into, and went over to investigate. Under inspection, he noted that his friend's eyes—once light brown, now golden—were still glassy. Gently, he laid the creature's head down—even his _head_ was heavy!—and shook his head, agreeing with Ed's assessment. "He's still unconscious," he reported, growing concerned.

Initial shock overcome, loyalty to his friend won out; Kevin approached the brain and the beast. "…Rolf?" he whispered worriedly, looking in upon his friend's limp form.

Then, as if having suddenly regained the sense of hearing just as Kevin had spoken, Rolf's cyan corpse stirred, and his fogged-over eyes cleared up, revealing for all to see their new coloration. Jonny grinned—"Right on!", Edd breathed a sigh of relief, and Kevin let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"Time…four minutes, thirty-two seconds." The others stared at Ed, reading off the watch strapped to his right ankle, caught between surprise and appall. Then…

"That's _it?_" Eddy griped. "It felt like an eternity!" Edd nodded, eyebrows raising incredulously, and began mumbling to himself about the implications of…

"Lost time," Jonny explained. "Like in UFO stories!"

Before the tangent could go off on that vein, however, a gruff voice, vaguely familiar, asked, "What happened?"

Kevin gaped. "You don't _remember?_" Rolf's strangely slitted eyes and pointed muzzle masked the blank look the blue-haired wolf-cat-man-thing tried to shoot at his friend.

"You have become some sort of animal," Edd explained softly for the kilted shifter's benefit, "As we had seen the first time. You wouldn't remember because, it seems, you were not even conscious during that time. I must say that you are most fortunate for that. But how are you now feeling, Rolf?"

Rolf paused for a moment, noticing for the first time that the voices of **'pack…hunt…kill…chase…smell…howl…obey alpha…'** and primordial emotions of an animal that had been welling up had subsided at last. His livestock would be safe. "Rolf is well, Ed-boy," he answered, to the others' relief. "The beast has been silenced…for now…"

Ed grinned and giddily glomped Rolf. "Rolf can speak!" he grinningly proclaimed.

Jonny was also smiling, and cheekily quipped, "Told ya!" before frowning. "…what d'ya mean, I didn't tell 'em?"

Eddy rolled his eyes as the human-board argument escalated. "So…what can you do now? I mean, besides howl, run, and scare Kankers."

"Not that we aren't grateful for that last one," Double D hastily amended for his companion in suffering.

Ed excitedly perked up; he had some ideas. Kevin's interest too seemed renewed. "Well, since we're here, shouldn't we test them out?" he invited, to the others' beaming agreement. Boys will be boys, it seems—government conspiracies and impossible mutations or no.

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For the next three hours, the magnificent seven did just as they agreed… kind of. First they had Rolf experiment, under the collective guidance of the whole, with his new form. Their resident lab-lubber dominated the proceedings for the first few experiments with Rolf-Wolf, guiding him through several hypotheses and documenting the results. This quickly got dull for the others, though, and their resident scientist, still marveling, fell back to take notes as Jonny, Plank, Kevin and Eddy suggested less pertinent things for Rolf to try to do, and Ed enlisted pseudo-werewolf assist him in debunking a few werewolf myths (the moon myths aside). Though much hilarity ensued—especially when Rolf, trying to run on the school's laminate floors, slipped on his four furry feet and spun out of control—the 'idea people' soon either ran out of ideas (Kevin), started going down 'if Were-Rolfs, then Aliens' tracks of mind (Ed), or were called out on trying to find ways to exploit Rolf's power (Eddy). It was when Jonny inquired about what need Rolf had for clothes, however, that Rolf decided to call a stop to the experiments. After a moment of conferring, the gang, as before, split up into groups or went solo as they found necessary, and Jonny, Plank and Ed headed off with Rolf to romp in the woods for a time.

Eddy, true to form, played with more…practical…applications of his 'power'. Pantzing Jimmy one second, booby-trapping the school the next, he could really get used to this. Combining it with his demonstrated lock-picking skills, he found that he could pick every padlock in the school—and did so, leaving Kevin, of course, to clean up the mess—in all-time record time. He ran faster than the video cameras, according to Edd, who had filmed him with Ed's, could capture. And yet, he _still _didn't run faster than he could think, faster than he could react, while running. It was as though everything worked as normal, only faster…but unlike normal, he didn't grow tired and sore…if he wanted to, Eddy reasoned, he could become the ultimate thief. It was ironic, then, that while streaking through Peach Creek's business district, he suddenly wondered if he could run _normally_, or jog or walk at superhuman speeds. Eddy being Eddy, he automatically decided to do what he always did with these 'brain' things—get Double D to do it.

In addition to applying his powers to cover Eddy's tracks, Kevin practiced ordering metal objects about, targeting and unlocking every combination lock in the building (somehow picking up the combination in the process—Double D, for a moment forgetting the criminality of what they were doing, suggested making flash cards before strongly recanting it), making the refrigerator run without power, and made contact with the school's computers. Not that _that_ did much good, as Kevin discovered the computer and the internet were not one and the same… and that he just did not understand what the computers were saying. Too much data, too quick. Feeling a headache coming on, he stopped practicing at that point and broke into the Nurse's office for a painkiller.

And as for Edd, all he had to do was stand in the way and maintain a shield against pummeling as Eddy ran to and fro, here and there, hither and yon, over, around, into, and _under_ it (as in one inexplicable instance). It did not take long, however, for the highly excitable mind to tire of the task, and, seeing no need to further exercising this paranormal reflex, disappeared into the library for the next two and a half hours to lose himself in research. He still had too much investigating to do—he couldn't just stop; there were just too many questions to answer, too many loose ends… His search yielded both good and ill. He met moderate success in his search for books on the subject, utilizing one of his agreements with the school librarian to check out the useful books via the card catalogue, writing in '9/20' in the date. He knew she would believe it; he often would be the last person there, even outstaying the librarian, thanks to the agreement that resulted from when, a year-and-a-half of regularly making him leave at closing time finally culminated in Ms. Roth just leaving him with the spare key and instructions to lock up. Edd had found the key on the floor behind the door; no one had entered since he had left. Even so, he found one discovery particularly unnerving—during his search he had found several books on the paranormal in Physics, psychic phenomena in Psychology, and a series of project files in Government. Before, he had passed such occurrences off as 'misfiling', but now… Now, it was an _interesting _detail, to say the least.

When the six boys and a board reunited at the back steps of the school gym and set off for home, hoping to beat the parents' returns for appearance's sake, each was exhausted, mentally or physically, but pleased with the afternoon's results. With the practice each had had with his powers, they all felt a little better prepared for whatever trials awaited them.

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**Author Note: **My apologies for the very delayed update; life, the universe, and everything including the kitchen sink got in the way. That, and a chapter two steps ahead, inspiration for a sequel, developing a system for their powers that I'm still codifying (seeing as I have the attention span of a gnat and the memory of a goldfish), and this chapter's unexpected expansion. On the upside, I believe I've got my groove back when it comes to writing—I'm really pleased with how this chapter turned out.

I would like to say the next update will come sooner, but I cannot make any promises. I will only say therefore that the longer the time between updates, the more chapters there will be per update.

**Vote:** I am considering adopting the DCAU and The Incredibles into this universe; I already have some crazy ideas about how to intertwine the defining elements of each into the whole, and have left suitable blanks that would allow me to pull this off. This isn't the first time one of my TV obsessions has caught itself up into this fic—another show the other one has somehow become irreparably tangled in it on a background level, though I doubt you would be able to recognize the show, let alone the connections. The incorporation wouldn't play in a big way unless I do a crossover fic; it would mostly consist of dropping names and terminology, the occasional cameo or minor role, events mentioned as taking place 'out of state' and news coverage, and the omission of discussing DC characters as living on the other side of the Fifth Wall. Some elements of each will be changed, of course, to make them consistent with this universe, but the essential character of each or either will ideally be kept intact. On the matter of name dropping and Fourth/Fifth Wall, I can resist the temptation—hard though it is—but I need to know whether or not to go further in dropping hints. Why? I repeat, internal consistency. All things considered, however, I leave it up to you, O Readers, to decide. So, tell me what you think: Incorporate one or the other, incorporate both, don't incorporate either, or leave it undecided. Remember: What happens with this it goes through depends on your input, but I need to know within the next few updates. I'm taking this via PMs and reviews, so anonymous readers can drop in their suggestions.

**Challenge: **As mentioned in the vote, I have already incorporated one show into the TBE universe already, whose presence will become more than just slightly apparent in the next few chapters. While I do not expect many to recognize the show, let alone the hints, it would be interesting to see if anyone can figure it out. I _do _have trouble finding fitting titles for the chapters at times, and one is coming up, so here's the challenge: first person to identify the hints and name the show gets to choose an appropriate and fitting phrase/saying that will be used for the nameless chapter's title and the word within it to be replaced. I will post the chapter without a title, so that the winner has a chance to respond with a name for the chapter, and until the person submits I will leave it blank. As with the vote, reviews are a perfectly acceptable means of communication for this, and I leave reviewing open to anyone, including anonymous reviewers.

If that doesn't appeal to you (or even if it does), I also issue the same challenge for the identification of what is under Double D's hat in this universe before I disclose it in The Reveal. Here's a hint: what the characters know and what the readers know are two different things. Not all the characters know everything, not all are aware of the missing information existing, and I am limiting your knowledge of what secrets the characters are hiding to subtle and not-so-subtle hints.

**Note for Reviewer:**

_**supaherolena02:**_ So did I. A reflection of life circumstances. (College paperwork = Chaos)

Concerning your suggestions for the Eds' outfits, I too have seen and drooled over the designs for the Super Children's' outfits on NintendoNut01's DeviantArt account. However, the outfits are designed for one fic on this site already, and I really don't see those ensembles being practical for this fic. These kids are expensive equipment; their backers (explained later)Edd's paranoid, Jimmy's injury-prone, and the Kankers are violent—protective gear of some sort may be necessary for those of normal human vulnerability; and there will be secret identities here, so masks are a must. Or at least dark glasses.

Good point about Jimmy, though—I did not think about being faithful to the characters' colors initially, nor did I consider that Jimmy's outfit could incorporate emergency materials! On that note, while looking in on "It Smells Like An Ed", I saw that Jimmy has hockey gear. Should I incorporate it? As for Sarah, while Raven's pink Happy inner would probably be delighted by your suggestion for Sarah's outfit, the blue outer self would most likely reach out from her dimension and kill me. **:**/ Still, you have something there about the skirt… As for Nazz…my initial inspiration was no, I want to _avoid_ using NintendoNut-01's ideas. However, that reaction to your suggestion has given me inspiration for both her powers _and _her outfit—thanks!

I love your idea for Jonny, though: he's still Captain Melonhead, but after two years, it's about time the Cap's been given an upgrade. While I doubt the vines would work out (too many handholds; he seems to be a bit of the martial artist type, even _with _his cool tree-growing powers), the woodland camouflage pants—perhaps combined with some peace beads and a white shirt (not that you'd be able to tell after a few patrols XP)—is TOTALLY Jonny. Although, the look would be a bit more functional if the jacket was not a flat brown, but using the same camouflage. I even found an excellent choice of fabric probably available at the time of the setting that works perfectly—CADPAT! (Seriously, look it up—wonderful things, these US-Aussie/Brit/Canadian military tech exchange agreements…) However, given Jonny's climbing habits and down-with-Mother-Nature tendencies, faux-leather moccasins seem much more up his alley…Yup. The more I think about it, the more I LOVE the look… Are you sure I could use this? Because it'd break my heart to use anything else now…

…Still don't know what to use to conceal his identity, though. Any thoughts? And how should Plank be rigged? At the end of a broom/staff, or attached to his forearm so that Plank can act as a brace and/or weapon (an extension of the "blade of the arm"?). I prefer the latter option, as that smiling face is quite distinctive and therefore noticeable, risking both Jonny's and the others' identities in the process, whereas having Plank attached to his arm would enable Jonny to hide him more effectively, but I would like your input.

I like—no, more like love, but not quite—your idea of Kevin using an outfit like the Terminator's, especially since, upon looking up a photo of the getup (never seen the movie), I discovered the jacket resembles the one Kevin was wearing in "Urban Ed" and the one acquired from (ripped off of) Eddy in "A Fistful of Ed." Kevin clearly likes the style, so perhaps he would get a larger size? However, while I do like the idea of dark green, it wouldn't fit nearly as much as a nice black leather, like a biker's; he's a technopath, after all. Which leads me to another point: maybe he should have, a longer jacket made (kind of like Static's in the DCAU) only along the same lines as the leather jacket outlined above… Maybe with green denim, Sunbrella fabric, or something along that order on the lower part, but black leather down to where a normal jacket would end, and the whole bordered with black leather? Again, he's a technopath, not a gadgeteer—he needs to have a place to keep whatever devices Double D can come up with for him to use, and a large jacket could accommodate a lot of deep pockets, or at the very least hide a very hefty toolbelt. For the time being (he's not going to get that custom jacket any time soon with his allowance), what are your thoughts about a nice grey hoodie and some elbow pads? A toolbelt is something I could definitely see Edd rigging up, but leather is just expensive for kids/teens on limited budgets.

On a related note, should Kevin have cargo pants with lots of pockets (again, for devices, tools, spare sunglasses, that sort of thing—or some thick blue or green jeans? Ultimately, I could see him getting a pair of custom leather-and-denim jeans/pants to accompany that coat of his, but in the meantime, again, Kevin is unlikely to have the funds. (Besides, it's more logical to just change one part of your outfit than the entire thing if you don't have a car to keep it in.)

I don't think his signature cap would be a good idea—not only might the Coolest Hat in the show get damaged, but again, it announces to the world 'I AM KEVIN!"—not a good thing for a super keeping a secret identity secret. What about a football helmet? In "I Am Curious Ed" Kevin used his helmet to knock all the apples off the tree with a _headbutt_, which showed he can use his head as a weapon like many characters in the show, but he never did it without the helmet on—perhaps because he's not as much of a bonehead? Either way, it makes sense then that he would wear it in a situation where, again, there's going to be a significant risk to one's head, and plenty of opportunity to use one's skull as an unconventional weapon. He could spray paint it or something, and could wear sunglasses underneath it or have Double D trick it out with some sort of semi -transparent glass-like material (think Gear's mask) or thin mesh (more likely) to hide his identity.

Anyway, as far as the Kankers go…I have a strong conviction that mini-skirts are just asking for scraped knees in a combat situation…actually, skirts are just asking for trouble (peeping toms), especially for flyers, unless the wearer wears shorts underneath the skirt. Or pants, for close-range fatales. Either way, May of all the girls cannot go without some sort of under-skirt over-underwear covering. What do you think about a long shirt over leggings? Good catch about the hair, though—I hadn't even considered that! Though I'm glad to see I'm not alone with her color scheme, good thinking with the grey—another thing I missed. As for Marie…I think we were thinking along the same wavelength, but I again find practicality an issue. Three quarter pants may work as a compromise, and may actually be more fitting, considering they are also called "flood pants" (XP). Boots + Water = Dead Weight, though, so perhaps water shoes would be a better option… One thing stumps me, though: her hair is so unusual that it is a dead giveaway of her identity. Got any ideas as to how to hide it? The best I could come up with was a full-body wetsuit, but those apparently are a pain to wear on land, or the diving helmet in the trailer, but that also would be a pain to wear on land. And Lee's outfit I'm still working on, but your input definitely has been a help there… (I assume the pockets would be for storing dirt?)

And as for Rolf, I hope you like what I came up with. A _Great_ _Kilt_ (check it out on Wikipedia under 'History of the Kilt') of a homemade plaid design of the colors noted, no shoes (paws), no mask (no one would recognize him), and no underwear (for the tail). The only thing that could be added to the wardrobe would be a tool belt. I've based the tartan color scheme and patterns on Wr1226r hunting on Wikimedia, with black corresponding to brown, green to red, white to green, red to red orange or dark red, and blue to gold (different from yellow; think Microsoft Word's "gold). Clashes horribly on blue, of course; that's the point. **No** **one** would laugh when the wearer is 7' tall, still growing, and fanged.

That said, that strategy won't work for the others. While I've got most of their color schemes now, (Ed [black/dark blue & light sea greens/Cosmic Turquoise (see Cosmic Beige on Wikipedia)]; Jimmy [light blue & gray]; Sarah [Cosmic Latte (same article; looks kinda like beige), hot pink, & black]; Jonny [browns & greens]; Kevin [black & green]; May [light gray & sky blue]; Marie [dark blues & black]; Lee [beige & brown/orange]; Rolf [Blue, orange/browns, golds, & reds]) I'm still trying to figure out what would work for the remainder. All I've got so far is that Edd just HAS to wear a labcoat and the gas mask seen in "High Heeled Eds" (the cool factor demands it!), as well as something to hide/protect his hat, that Plank's a nudist, and that Eddy has to wear some sort of lightweight helmet (or the hard hat from "O-Ed Eleven") to hide his "flat-as-a-pancake head".

I know that's a lot, but I'd appreciate your opinions on anything I've discussed here; my own style is what one would call "frump meets middle-schooler meets military brat meets do-it-yourselfer"… so I have a lot of points towards dressing practically, but not dressing _cool. _At least, not as far as my own (female) gender goes—I think I've got a pretty good hang on guys' outfits through my exposure to anime, Naruto, the DCAU (or more specifically Static Shock—they've got the best dressers in that universe outside of the Dark Knight himself), and…well…a lot of quote-unquote 'guy flicks'. All I have for girls is Raven's cloak, my aforementioned convictions about skirts and "Principals of Superhero Clothing" (I'll paste them up on my profile sometime this week), and Edna Mode's "No capes" line…

Lastly, but definitely NOT the least, you have my deepest gratitude for your offer, and I would be delighted if you could! I've been using this one site called "Hero Machine 2.5" to approximate their wardrobes, but it doesn't have their body types *pulling out hair in frustration* and I have about as much patience when it comes to drawing the human figure as Eddy in front of a jawbreaker. Please, PM me if you still want to. (Thank you!)

~The Arcticourt Spellwright


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